THE BIRDING WAS BRILLIANT

The 3 state birding tour that was mostly in Indiana was awesome. We started out at Spring Grove Cemetery hoping to find a Merlin but struck out. We did run into a nice little pocket of birds though and got Brown Creeper, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and Golden-crowned Kinglet!

Our next stop was Brookville Lake. On the way in we stopped at the "Goldfinch" for an early lunch. They gave us breakfast menus and we all asked for lunch menus. Then we proceeded to all order from the breakfast menu. What a bunch of tools. The "Goldfinch Potatoes" were good. The lake was mostly frozen except for on small pocket by the damn jammed with about 40! Pied-billed Grebe, American Coots and a couple others including 4 Redhead. There was one other larger bit of open water further up and in the middle of the lake that held quite a few waterfowl. This fact was not missed by 6 mature and juvi Bald Eagles who were sitting on the ice chatting with each other and occasionally harassing the ducks. Some of the best birding was on the roads down to the lakefront where we saw my nemesis lifer Purple Finch! Excellent looks at about six males and females. Also some nice Fox Sparrows and a Hermit Thrush.
I forgot that on the way to Brookville we stopped at Miami Whitewater Forrest. On the way in we saw a large flock of Horned Lark with Lapland Longspur(lifer) and a few Snow Buntings mixed in. We also saw a few Northern Harriers including 2 adult males. MWW was overrun with hikers plastered with buttons holding walking sticks hoping to see a bluebird. How do you become a hiker who isn't a birder?
After Brookville we drove up to a super secret location to hopefully see a Long-eared Owl. We got to the private property and tried to figure out what cedar tree the owner had been talking about. Could it be the closest 10 foot ceder right over there? Yes! it could. The owl was suddenly right in front of us at eye level about 10 feet away! A very good look at a very cool creepy little dude! Another lifer! I was picking up lifers left and right on a local winter trip! We stopped by a large group of Canada Goose on the way back and found a few Snow Geese. 2 blue and one regular.
Our last stop was Camp Dennison gravel pit for waterfowl and to hopefully see another lifer....Ross's Goose which had been reported there for the last couple of days. We got there just before dusk and there were tons of ducks packed into one bit of small open water. Also there were hundreds of Canada Geese and Mallards out on the ice. No white geese to be seen but groups were flying in for the night. More and more, larger and larger groups of ducks and geese flying in from all directions. It was an impressive sight that was very fun to watch. As it started getting to dark to make out more than silhouettes I started to wonder if a Ross's Goose would even look white in the darkness and just as I thought that a white goose shaped bird flew into view bigger than the ducks by a bit and clearly smaller than the geese! I yelled "there it is" and successfully got everybody but one of us on the bird and we all watched it circle around and land. Attempts to find it on the ice in the dark with hundreds of others proved impossible. Party pooper Dr. Professor pointed out that it could have been a domestic duck so I didn't include it on the list of 69 birds for the day. We all agree, including Dr. Professor, that it was most likely the Ross's Goose however. Probability plays a huge part in birding. Otherwise we can't count the Eastern Meadowlarks or Carolina Chickadees we saw but did not hear either. It was cold as hell and not prime time to find big numbers of species but it proved to be one of the best birding trips I have ever been on! Plenty of lifers and a good time!