"Getting" the Ovenbird This Morning

["Kristin Purdy" <kristinpurdy at comcast dot net>]

I joined five other go-getters--Anne Halley, Pomera Fronce, Cindy and 
Steve Sommerfeld, and Bill Fenimore--at Ogden's 29th Street Trailhead 
this morning at 8:00 to seek out the most popular bird in the city.  The 
Ovenbird did not disappoint.  We were just several hundred feet up the 
connector on the way to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail when we heard the 
bird singing in a scrub oak grove.  And the chase was on.  

The Ovenbird made us work pretty hard for good looks today.  We chased 
him from the initial spot where Pomera was the first to "get" him, up to 
the junction between the connector and the shoreline trail, through 
scrub oak, along the trail to the pink ribbons, and back and forth along 
the marked section of trail.  Statement of the day was, "I got him!" 
from whichever birder  happened to be in the lead.  Pomera was the first 
to utter these words.  Then I heard them from Steve and Cindy.  I 
believe I said them.  Bill uttered the phrase a time or two, and then 
Anne got in on the getting.  

Upon hearing those words the rest of us would gravitate over to the 
"getter" who was frozen with binoculars up and concentrating on the 
still-but-singing bird.  As additional birders acquired the bird, a 
question was bantered around within the group, "Do you have him?"  After 
a lot of chasing and re-positioning, we all "got" him.   

It's quite easy to follow the bird's song, but as with yesterday's 
sightings, not too easy to determine where the bird is perched while 
singing.  Our last look was the best.  The Ovenbird perched in the dead 
top of a scrub oak at the junction of the connector trail and the 
Bonneville Shoreline Trail.  He sang from the same perch for--gosh...7-8 
minutes?  We had bright sunlight at our backs and the bird's orange 
crown stripe flashed when he turned his head just the right way.  The 
view was excellent for binoculars and would have been stellar with a 
scope.  But the scope was an afterthought and we didn't see the bird as 
well again.  

We didn't have the impression that we were following more than one bird 
this morning.  We only heard one at a time and it always sang in the 
direction that ours flew when he dropped off a perch.  More observations 
will be very helpful to locate the second bird that Steve and Jack saw 
yesterday.  

Bottom line is that we all "got" the Ovenbird this morning--some for the 
first time, some for the first time in Utah, and moi, for the second 
time in Utah :^D.  Now all you other go-getters--go get 'im.    

Kris

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