Rough Weather, Rough Boarder Crossing, Easy Ruff

Last Wednesday I was in Buffalo for work, so decided to see if a Ruff was still hanging out in the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge,(Still not sure the difference between a refuge, sanctuary, reserve and preserve).  By the time I arrived at the parking area it was windy and raining pretty hard.  But I had driven a long way for this bird and I wasn't about to give up on a Ruff because of rough weather.  There were other birds I could have seen too, such as a Wilson's Snipe, so I donned the rain gear and headed out with my scope only to get soaked and not see either of the birds I had hoped for.  I was glad I brought along a change of dry clothes and it felt good to get dry before heading home.

I stayed home and birded locally on Thursday, and while out at Tommy Thompson Park Wet woods, taking another look at the White-eyed Vireo, I got an RBA Buffalo bird report that the Ruff had been re-found around 10 miles from the original location, in a pond in the town of Shelby.  I made plans to head out the next morning and was making good time when the good folks at Homeland Security decided that something must be fishy when a lone man wants to cross into US territory just to photograph a bird.

Was I going to sell the photos?  How did I manage to get a day off?  How long would I be staying in the "Land of the Free?"  Crazy questions and I don't think I answered a single one to the boarder guard's satisfaction.  I had to pull up and go inside and be reexamined.  After about a 20 minute wait I answered all the same questions to the supervisor in charge of obsessive birders and luckily, he "likes the birds too," and after he searched my car, I was free to go.

45 minutes later I pulled up to the pond, behind a man who was just putting his scope in the car.  He had seen the Ruff not 5 minutes ago and I pulled out my scope and quickly found it and had ABA Life Bird number 603, my sixth lifer of the year.

Yesterday Sue and I went to Oshawa Second Marsh for the annual Little Gull Bird Viewing Extravaganza, and enjoyed Little Gulls and Bonapart's Gulls, Brown Thrashers and a House Wren.  Afterwards we went to Thickson Woods where we saw a Saw-Whet Owl, baby Great Horned Owl, Blue-headed Vireo and Black-throated Green Warbler.  After lunch I took Sue to Ashbridges Bay for the Eared Grebe and the Wet Woods at Tommy Thompson Park to find the White-eyed Vireo, but we no had luck in either location.  Still it was a great day out and we both added lots of birds to our year list.

Ruff

Little Gull