American Avocets at CJ Brown

Wow! We had some amazing visitors to the CJ Brown Beach today.....16 American Avocets!
 
From Wikipedia

         "American avocets were previously found across most of the United States until                         extirpated from the East Coast. The breeding habitat consists of marshes, beaches, prairie ponds, and shallow lakes in the mid-west, as far north as southern Canada. These breeding grounds are largely in areas just east of the rocky mountains including parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Utah, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, and even down to parts of New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. Their migration route lands them in almost every state in the western United States. The avocet's wintering grounds are mainly coastal. Along the Atlantic Ocean, they are found in North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. There are also wintering grounds along the Gulf of Mexico in Florida, Texas, and Mexico, and along the Pacific Ocean in California and Mexico. There are resident populations in the Mexican States of Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Mexico City and Puebla, and in Central California."

While we do see them in Clark County, the most I've see is one or two...not 16!

Ruddy Turnstones

 A couple of Ruddy Turnstones popped in for a few days at the CJ Brown beach. 
Such gorgeous birds!!!

American Avocet

 An American Avocet visited CJ Brown yesterday. 
I had seen on the Ohio Birds list that one was seen yesterday morning on the CJ Beach. I didn't think that it would still be there last night when I stopped to photograph the sunset, but there it was....
Not only did it stay all day, but it paraded back and forth in front of me in the amazing sunset light.
What a treat!!

Cedar Bog Orange Orbeaver

Some looks at an Orange Orbweaver from a visit to Cedar Bog today.
Shot with 60mm macro using 8 shot in-camera focus stacking. 

The Orange Orbweaver is fairly rare....only 4 iNaturalist Observations in Ohio!

Ohio Odonata Conference: Sedge Sprite

 I attended my first Ohio Odonata Conference last weekend. Learned lots, and had a great time in the field with experts!
On the post conference field trip at CJ Brown, I located a Sedge Sprite. This lovely little (about an inch in size) damselfly is a gorgeous metallic green and brilliant turquoise. The coolest thing is that is hadn't been recorded in Clark County since 1896 (per Jim Lemon from the Kellicott observations). 

There Be Dragons.....

 I'm loving the AI bird tracking capabilities of the OM System OM-1.
And......it works well for Dragonflies, too!
Some of my recent pics:

Full Strawberry Moon Eclipse

 Well, Ohio cloud cover made for some difficult shooting conditions, but I did manage to capture a few decent eclipse images. Standing in the yard for 3 hours was no picnic, but worth the effort.