A chilly but mercifully cloudless dawn was in the offing as eight of us gathered at the usual spot for a trip to see birds of the season, starring migrant northbound waterfowl, migrant raptors, and early-arriving other species. After fortuitous discoveries of a raft of common mergansers in the Toussaint River, and a pair of sandhill cranes along Rt. 2, the timing was right for us to arrive at the Magee Marsh bird trail soon after dawn; as is the case most of the year, the trail hosted a small and fairly predictable array of birds, but as the crowds were well distant at the Shreve Migration Sensation we had the place to ourselves. The only expected species we missed, inexplicably enough, was the winter wren, though only a single rusty blackbird was there to demonstrate this species’ diminishing numbers.
We saw few other humans during a fairly long walk at Ottawa NWR. We had planned to do the entire “Death March,” including a side-trip to the fairly newly-opened trail through the North Woods, but the absence of many anticipated waterfowl in the eastern pools and in the estuary, along with the closure of part of a path by the presence of an eagles’ nest, persuaded us to curtail it. The northeasternmost impoundment was drawn down-signs of management for something other than ducks?-and on the mudflats we found an early migrant shorebird, a pectoral sandpiper. We were led to wonder if this unusual concession to the needs of these birds might have been caused by coming public events. Only a few turkey vultures appeared by way of soaring migrants. Metzger Marsh, by contrast, was crammed with migrant waterfowl, with many dabbling and diving ducks, ~300 tundra swans, many coots, etc., and at the pier we watched a couple of thousand scaups pass by, chased by a pleasure boat.
Maumee Bay State Park was active, with numbers of the local scaup flock huge but difficult to quantify. Probably tens of thousands were present, but nothing else remarkable was seen. Waterfowl here stay well offshore, with most too far away to identify. Bayshore Power Plant was fairly birdless overall, and we abandoned the idea of walking the trail to the hot waters. Though our list of waterfowl seen had grown to impressive size, we decided to check out the Findlay reservoirs on our way back. Here we eventually found our first loons, some decent waterfowl flocks, and our largest numbers of gulls for the day, which included three lesser black-backed gulls in breeding plumage, our first of the day and a nice find this far inland, especially this time of year. Groups of 2-15 northbound turkey vultures seemed to be constantly in view on the way south, but few other migrants were seen. During the day we saw 20 bald eagles, a number hardly surprising in view of its recent uptick in numbers in Ohio.
While we found few such remarkable birds, our trip was blessed by good weather, and as we totaled up the species seen we came up with a respectable 71, so our outing was nearly as productive as it was pleasant. Here’s the list:
Canada goose
Tundra swan
Wood duck
Gadwall
American wigeon
American black duck
Mallard
Blue-winged teal
Northern shoveler
Green-winged teal
Canvasback
Redhead
Ring-necked duck
Greater scaup
Lesser scaup
Bufflehead
Hooded merganser
Common merganser
Red-breasted merganser
Ruddy duck
Common loon
Pied-billed grebe
Double-crested cormorant
Great blue heron
Great egret
Turkey vulture
Bald eagle
Northern harrier
Cooper’s hawk
Red-tailed hawk
American kestrel
American coot
Sandhill crane
Killdeer
Pectoral sandpiper
Bonaparte’s gull
Ring-billed gull
Herring gull
Lesser black-backed gull
Rock pigeon
Mourning dove
Belted kingfisher
Red-bellied woodpecker
Downy woodpecker
Pileated woodpecker
Blue jay
American crow
Tree swallow
Black-capped chickadee
Tufted titmouse
White-breasted nuthatch
Brown creeper
Golden-crowned kinglet
Eastern bluebird
American robin
European starling
Yellow-rumped warbler
American tree sparrow
Fox sparrow
Song sparrow
White-throated sparrow
Dark-eyed junco
Red-winged blackbird
Eastern meadowlark
Rusty blackbird
Common grackle
Brown-headed cowbird
House finch
American goldfinch
House sparrow