Ruff at Laguna Vista Reservoir, 3/21/25

I woke up a little late this morning.  I was thinking about heading west upriver to Salineno, but I dawdled so long with coffee and breakfast I decided it was to late for the long drive up there.  Then the WhatsApp dinged.  Jesse Huth, birding guide from central Texas, had just found a Ruff at the Laguna Vista Reservoir.  Yikes!  I've only seen two of those.  My lifer was at a Phoenix sewage treatment plant back in the 80's.  And the other was at an Austin sewage treament plant twenty years ago or so.  Both were fall migrants.  Maybe too late to go upriver but not too late to go for a Ruff!

A Ruff is a strange shorebird species from Europe and Asia.  The male is called a Ruff while the female is known as a Reeve. (God bless the British!)  Historically they have been thought to be related to Pectoral Sandpipers but are now in a different genus.  Males sport elaborate colorful plumage around the neck and breast durning the breeding season.  On the breeding grounds in the Eurasian Arctic, males collect on display grounds, known as leks, where they compete for females.  Every spring and fall a few show up across North America where the are much sought after by area birders.

I arrived at 11am to find a half dozen of our local birders lined up with scopes on the overlook next to the sewage treatment plant.  Father Tom, Justin LeClaire, Ryan Rodriguez, Danny Salinas and others were on the Ruff.  I like it when it's easy.  Well the Ruff was easy to see through a scope but getting photos was another story.  An eleven inch long bird at 220 yards (I measured on Google Earth) through a 400mm lens doesn't make much of a picture.  So I left the group and skirted the edge of the playa to the south where I wasn't much closer but the light was better.  Here's a few heavily cropped images.  This is a male coming into breeding plumage.

Ruffs have long scapular feather that fluff up in the breeze giving the bird a ruffed up appearance.  I guess that what the British thought as they hunted the birds for the pot.  As I write this a day later the Ruff is back and providing much better photo opps.  I should go back out there but I've got an Amur Stonechat to worry about.  Hopefully more about this later.