Black-legged kittiwake in central Ohio!

Waters cascading over Hoover Reservoir form the backdrop for a soaring juvenile kittiwake.

Conferences, speaking and other stuff had kept me from triggering a camera shutter for far too long, until a brief window this morning. So I ran up to commune with the now-famous black-legged kittiwake that has been frequenting the tailwaters below Hoover Dam, only a short drive away. These pelagic gulls are a rarity in Ohio, and there have only been a few Franklin County records. This one is a juvenile, with its ornate patterning. I think there has only been one confirmed record of an adult in Ohio, but we get a handful of wayward juveniles every fall/early winter, usually along Lake Erie.

This bird has been present since November 10, I believe, and has delighted throngs of onlookers. Black-legged kittiwakes are abundant, with a total population of nearly 3 million birds, but few of them make it to the midwestern U.S. In North America, virtually all of them winter at sea, in both the Atlantic and Pacific. The Hoover bird is quite cooperative, often winging by observers at very close range. Today was a typical late fall Ohio white sky day - what I would have given for blue skies and golden light! - but even so, it was possible to capture a bit of the beauty of this young kittiwake.

Black-legged Kittiwake in central Ohio!

The upper end of Deer Creek Reservoir in Fayette County, Ohio, where beautiful little Deer Creek begins to become impounded by the big dam some distance to the south. Bob Royse found a Black-legged Kittiwake here on November 26, and the wayward gull is still sticking. I was finally able to run down there this morning and ogle the animal. The light never was great - the end of the day would be a much better time to shoot images from this spot - but I did what I could to record the rarity. But mostly I just watched the highly entertaining bird, for nearly three hours.

It took all of a nanosecond to find the kittiwake, seen here stretching its wing. Bob's directions and description of the scenario were spot on. The bird is fixated on a spot where a seldom-used park road comes very near the creek, and access could not be easier. I saw the bird from my car, pulled over, and set up shop. The kittiwake cared not a whit for my presence, nor that of the other birders that stopped in during the morning.

As are nearly all Ohio records of Black-legged Kittiwake, this individual is a first-year (first-cycle for some of you) bird, born this summer somewhere in the far north. Young kittiwakes are more striking and conspicuous, and easier to identify, than are the adults.

The kittiwake takes a bath. I always marvel over the cold hardiness of birds such as this. It was below freezing upon my arrival, and that water is frigid indeed. The gulls are unfazed.

Black-legged Kittiwakes breed in the far north, from about the latitude of southern Alaska to points north. They are normally birds of the oceans, breeding along sea cliffs and wintering at sea. Small numbers, nearly all juveniles, do make "wrong turns" and end up inland, as this bird did. A smattering of the population migrates through the Great Lakes, and most of our kittiwake records come from Lake Erie. Birds well inland from our Great Lake are rare indeed, hence the exceptional nature of Bob Royse's find.

Several dozen Ring-billed Gulls, like this beautiful adult, were also in the area. Every now and then, the flock of ring-bills would barnstorm upstream to where the loner kittiwake hung out, and commence a feeding frenzy. Apparently there were occasional schools of small fish that were coming to the surface, and the gulls would begin dive-bombing the water. Their entry smacks could be heard some distance away. The activity would stir the kittiwake to action, and in short order it would capture four or five fish. I would love to know what the plentiful piscine prey is, but try as I might, I could never get a good image of one of the birds with its fish. From what I could tell, they are probably one of the larger shiners, perhaps spotfin shiner.

The kittiwake did not much care for the Ring-billed Gulls, and generally kept its distance. As kittiwakes breed far to the north of the range of the much more southerly Ring-billed Gull, these may have been the first of their kind that the young kittiwake had interacted with.

Our protagonist was somewhat more hospitable to this smaller Bonaparte's Gull (on right). The Bonaparte's seemed to want to hang with the kittiwake, but we noticed that its efforts to perch atop the same rock as the kittiwake were soundly rebuffed.

A young kittiwake is highly ornamented with black markings. Although you may throw your hands up at gull identification, as do many birders, there should be little problem in identifying one of these distinctive beasts.

In flight young kittiwakes show a bold black M, or perhaps W, pattern on the upper wings. The big smudgy-black collar and dark tail tip bookend the wing pattern, and create a showy pattern that causes a kittiwake to pop from the crowd of gulls.

I made this image back in 2010, on St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea far off Alaska's coast. The clean gray and white adult Black-legged Kittiwakes construct a large fancy nest made primarily of mosses plucked from the tundra. There cannot be many other gull species whose young are raised in such luxury.

It would be very interesting to know where the Deer Creek kittiwake originated. To be sure, it was spawned in a situation similar to the photo above, quite possibly along the Arctic Ocean of eastern Canada. Our rare visitor has probably traveled at least 1,500 miles from the north to thrill birders here in central Ohio.

Kittiwake thrills crowd, nearly gets whacked!

Ah, downtown Cleveland in mid-winter. If you like birds, it is a destination point. Here, a freighter steams out of port off Wendy Park and into icy Lake Erie. Legions of gulls, roiled aloft by the ship's passage, create a cloud. Gulls are a big part of the allure. Amongst the throngs of Herring and Ring-billed Gulls are rarer species, and picking through the masses to find them is actually fun for some of us.
 

I was up in Cleveland two weekends ago, and my first port of call was the legendary power plant at East 72nd Street. That's the plant on the left; the busy State Route 2/90 expressway is between the plant and your picture-taking narrator, and Lake Erie is on the right. The plant pumps warm water into the lake, and thus keeps a patch open and ice-free. The unfrozen oasis often lures mobs of gulls and other interesting waterbirds.

Note the plant's large stack - the farthest to the left.

Peregrine Falcons often roost on the aforementioned stack, and here we have one roaring in, while its mate watches from its perch on the railing. The perched bird is just left of the red light. These falcons don't miss a trick, and see all that is spread beneath them: Birders, ducks, gulls, everything.

Anyway, when I arrived at E. 72nd around 9 am, other birders were already assembled and glassing the waters. No surprise; this spot almost always has birders.

It's been cold - MIGHTY COLD - here in Ohio, and for the most part, Lake Erie has become choked with ice. This is the open lead created by the power plant's warm effluvia, and when conditions are like this the birding is great. Oftentimes the birds are nearly at fingertip range, which makes for great photography. Picture-taking aside, it is just great fun to watch the masses of gulls wheel and fight, fish and squabble. It is also pleasurable (to some of us) to sort through them looking for rarer beasts such as Glaucous, Iceland, and Thayer's gulls.

Cleveland's most famous gull in residence, an immature Black-legged Kittiwake, Rissa tridactyla.This gorgeous specimen has been present at E. 72nd for several weeks, and it was quite nearly the first bird that I saw upon my arrival. Shortly after exiting the car, Larry Rosche waved me over and there was the kittiwake, fishing in the small opening. One might argue that an immature kittiwake bests even the suave adults (CLICK HERE for adult kittiwakes) in the looks department. The bird is an artistic study in patterns of black, gray, and white. The bold W-pattern on the wings is offset by a sooty neck collar and inky tail band, creating an unmistakable appearance.

Black-legged Kittiwake is quite the rarity in Ohio, with a relative handful seen each year. Nearly all are in November and December, and most are non-lingering flybys. Once in a while one tarries into winter, but seldom are they as cooperative as this bird is. Many birders have seen it, and the bird has made for more than a few new checks on life lists. I spent nearly two hours at this spot, in total, and ran into lots of birders, including many seldom seen friends SUCH AS THESE.

The kittiwake was a blast to watch. It nearly always stayed in the small sphere of open water, and at times came too close to photograph. At times it was the only bird working the waters. Kittiwakes like fish, as does any self-respecting gull, and the bird made frequent shallow plunge-dives such as this.

Up it pops, with a shell-shocked emerald shiner. These little silvery minnows seemed to be the dietary staple of the kittiwake. Don't come back as an emerald shiner in the tail waters of the power plant at East 72nd Street in wintertime Cleveland. You may be fated to be snatched unexpectedly from the tranquil depths, rudely swallowed whole and dissolved by gastrointestinal acids, then catapulted back to the waters as a powerful fecal explosion of guano from a kittiwake's posterior.

These dives, which always or at least nearly always culminated in the capture of a shiner, were executed with great rapidity. From striking the water, gagging down the sushi, and taking flight all took place within a half-minute or so. Why the rush? It's best to be in a situation where all of your senses can be focused on your surroundings, and that's hard to do when preoccupied with catching minnows.

Shortly after getting airborne, the kittiwake vigorously shakes itself free of water droplets. I didn't Photoshop this image - just caught the bird in mid shake with a very fast shutter speed. Enlarge the photo by clicking on it and you'll see the spray of droplets around its head.
 

With an unexpected rush, this Peregrine Falcon suddenly shot right over the heads of the assembled birders, snapping all of us from our kittiwake reverie. When these big powerful falcons burst into a pack of birds, it's almost as if shock waves from the predator alters the immediate cosmos. You can almost feel the big bird's energy, and its presence triggers instant pandemonium. I managed this one decently sharp image as the falcon briefly hovered nearly overhead, its sights apparently set on our kittiwake. Apparently the lone kittiwake hunting in the patch of water was too much for the tower-roosting falcon to stand, and it bombed down and tried its best to exert its will and demonstrate that Peregrine Falcons sit atop the avian food chain.

After an excited chase, the falcon departed the hot waters sans kittiwake, and rocketed out towards the gulls roosting further out on the ice. Its progressive was marked by clouds of gulls swirling aloft, and eventually the falcon singled out one of the few Bonaparte's Gulls in the area. The raptor harried the small gull and eventually snatched it and headed back to shore. Through our optics, we watched as the gull struggled valiantly, its wings flapping wildly. The wildly struggling gull eventually proved too much for the falcon to grasp, and it dropped it. As if upset by this failure, the falcon raced around the gulls like a fighter jet, creating a massive uproar, before eventually soaring back to its lofty perch atop the power plant's tower.

All in a day's birding on the Cleveland lakefront.

Kittiwakes: A long, cold journey, including Cleveland

Photo: Chuck Slusarczyk

They've been finding great birds galore of late along Cleveland's Lake Erie coast, many of them practically in the shadow of the Cleveland Browns stadium. Chuck Slusarczyk, ace photographer who has shared his work with us many times, sent along some images of the latest batch of rarities. Viewing Chuck's work made me pine for a trip to the lake, but at least his images allowed me - and you - to live vicariously through his camera's lens.

Above, a first-cycle Black-legged Kittiwake, Rissa tridactyla, showing its distinctive sooty collar. Kittiwakes are mostly pelagic (ocean-going) and we get precious few of them in Ohio. In fact, this bird was Chuck's first kittiwake, along with many others, no doubt. We probably get far more kittiwakes than are seen, but most probably blow right down the middle of Lake Erie on the way to the Atlantic, and are never seen. Once in a while, one has the good matters to come to shore and hang loose for a bit, as this one did.

Other than a small percentage of the population taking a brief Great Lakes hiatus while in transit, Black-legged Kittiwakes are seldom out of sight of the sea. They nest on cliffs overlooking the sea, and winter at sea. This towering rock face is on St. Paul Island, Alaska, which is one of four islands that form the Pribilofs. I made this photo during a June 2010 trip, and I can tell you that this is a cold place. Kittiwakes thrive in cold environments, and spend that vast majority of their lives in wet frosty conditions that would kill you or I in short order.

The ledges of this cliff are festooned with nesting Black-legged Kittiwakes. Being that this is St. Paul Island, there are much rarer Red-legged Kittiwakes mixed in, but most are the former. There aren't many safer nesting spots. Would-be predators will have a tough time accessing kittiwake nests.

This was one of my more surreal experiences on St. Paul. Kittiwakes, gathering moss from the tundra in pea soup thick fog. This is one of few times that kittiwakes purposely alight on flat ground away from the water. As we stood there, taking in the scene, ghostly kittiwakes would materialize from the fog, bills full of moss, flying to the distant coast and their nesting colony.

Kittiwake-harvested moss goes to good use - it provides the birds with fodder to build these bulky cups. Few gull chicks have it as good as the kittiwake chicks. The specific epithet of the Black-legged Kittiwake - Rissa tridactyla - means "three toed". They actually have four toes, but the hind digit is greatly reduced, apparently an adaptation to better improve the birds' ability to stand on narrow cliff ledges such as this.

This is an adult Black-legged Kittiwake, and we never see this plumage in Ohio. All of them are young birds, such as in Chuck's shots. Supposedly there are four records of adults from Lake Erie, but I don't know any details...

The adults are gorgeous black, gray, and white gulls. Very neat and long-winged, the wingtips appearing as if dipped cleanly in a vat of ink. They are wonderful flyers, too - far more at home in the air than anywhere else. I made this image from atop a tall sea cliff, while kittiwake after kittiwake streamed by below, effortlessly riding the turbulent air currents blasting off the sea and smashing into the cliff. If Jonathan Livingston Seagull were real, he'd be a kittiwake.

Photo: Chuck Slusarczyk

If all goes well in the kittiwake nest high on a cliff ledge, this is the result. A strikingly marked juvenile, as in this beautiful image by Slusarczyk. The bold black bands on the wing form a rough W, and the inky-tipped tail band and charcoal neck collar provide punctuation. I've seen four or five of these in Ohio, and they've all jumped out visually from the pack of associated gulls. The best kittiwake find I made was a bird on the Scioto River in downtown Columbus, years ago. Ohio kittiwake records are few and far between away from our Great Lake.

Map courtesy Birds of North America Online/Cornell Lab of Ornithology

It would be most interesting to know the origins of Lake Erie kittiwakes. This species has a split breeding distribution in North America. There are the birds that breed along the Alaskan coastline and island chains, and there are populations centered around the Gulf of St. Lawrence and adjacent Newfoundland on the other side of the continent. There are also disjunct scattered populations breeding in the high arctic of Canada, due north of Hudson Bay. The St. Lawrence populations have expanded greatly in the past 40 years; I'm not sure if the high arctic colonies have also increased.

So, Chuck's immature Black-legged Kittiwake may have wandered into the Great Lakes from the east, by following the St. Lawrence River, forging through Lake Ontario, passing over the falls at Niagara, and eventually finding itself on Lake Erie in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's backyard.

Better yet, and a far wilder journey but not an implausible one, is that the kittiwake originated in one of the high arctic colonies. If so, it likely made its way south through Hudson Bay and into James Bay, aerially portaged across the landmass between there and the Great Lakes, and entered our waters. If so, what a trip! That young kittiwake would have traveled nearly 2,500 miles to reach Cleveland! I think that other species of seabirds that are rare on Lake Erie, such as jaegers, travel a path similar to the one outlined above.

Presumably, the Alaska breeders winter in the Pacific off the west coast and it's unlikely those birds would appear here. But, there is another possible point of origin. Many kittiwakes that breed in northern Europe make their way across the Atlantic to our offshore waters, especially young birds. Some of these juveniles stay on this side of the Atlantic for their first year, before heading back to breed when mature. I suppose it's possible that one of these European kittiwakes could make its way to Lake Erie. My money is on the high arctic birds, though.

However this kittiwake came to be in Ohio, it has thrilled many a birder and we're glad to have it. Thanks as always to Chuck for sharing his work, and check out more of his images HERE.