ML93201981

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Observation details

This is not my record or photo and I do not know who the photographer was. The bird is likely the bird referred to in Oberholser "Travis Co., Hornsby Bend sewage ponds (female, nonbreeding plumage, captured and measured, Sept. 15, 1963, G. F. Oatman, Jr., J.L. Rowlett, Rose Ann Rowlett; photographed, Sept. 16, Mary Anne McClendon, et al., and released; bird recaptured when found emaciated, but it died, Sept. 18, Betty Plass, F. S. Webster, Jr.; identification confirmed by E. B. Kincaid, Jr., et al.)." If this is the bird in Oberholser, the photographer is most likely Mary Anne McClendon. I hope the original slide is still at the offices of TAS so the photographer can be identified (if labeled on the slide). Thanks to Eric Carpenter for providing the information from Oberholser. Bert Frenz provided the following account from "Birding with The Beavers" in the Signal Smoke (Travis Audubon Newsletter), October 1963: "The afternoon of September 15, found us at the Sewage Ponds, ... Then we noticed two phalaropes swimming close together in the center of the largest pond. We immediately recognized that they were quite dark-backed and generally had the appearance of Northern Phalaropes; but one of the birds was obviously much larger than the other. During the next hour of close scrutiny from the bank, we became more and more suspicious of that larger, grayer, stouter-billed phalarope. At last, suspicion grew into near conviction; and since a 'sanitary' reputation is worth even more points among birders than an eager one, we knew we must prove our potentially dangerous suspicion. In an act of utmost 'eager beaverism' John stripped to his underwear and went after the phalarope in its own element. John's slowly moving head must have looked like a duck, for the two phalaropes showed virtually no alarm at his approach. They simply swam slowly away, keeping just beyond arm's length. After about 40 minutes of dog-paddling, John was inches closer. He reached slowly upward beneath the bird and -- and he had it! What wild, ecstatic joy, what cries and leaps into the air from the beavers on the bank accompanied his grasp of that bird, of that Red Phalarope. And a Red Phalarope, indeed, it was, as Kincaid was soon to certify after careful measurement and comparison with Ridgeway. A search of the literature revealed that this normally pelagic species had been recorded but 7 or 8 times in Texas and, of course, never in Travis County. - The Beavers"

Technical information

Model

HP Scanjet G4010

Dimensions

5400 pixels x 3600 pixels

Original file size

2.61 MB