I stopped at the west side of Lake Minsi on Sunday afternoon, walked out the fishing jetty at the parking lot, and started to "scope" the northwest part of the lake. I didn't expect to see much since there was a kayaker paddling through that area. But as it turned out, that kayaker flushed a bird near the cattails, which turned out to be a
Common Gallinule, a pretty unusual bird for the county! It was a couple hundred yards out, so I tried getting some documentation photos of it and then sent out a text to the local birders about it. As the kayaker moved on, it eventually swam back over to the cattails it was previously at and disappeared among them. You can barely make out the red forehead and bill and white flanks on the bird in these long-distance shots.
I drove over to the east side and found some cormorants, but there were several boats out on the water, so it was pretty much devoid of birds. I returned to the west side and saw Mike Schall scoping the area. He had refound the gallinule near the peninsula, but it was staying behind the brush most of the time. Adam Miller showed up soon after and we got him on the bird. I believe it's only the third time I've seen this bird in the county, so it was a nice surprise.
Earlier in the day, I stopped at Green Pond and found a Blue-headed Vireo and got a nice photo of one of the eight Palm Warblers that were there.
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