Nineteen of us set out on propitious early weather for a sweep of northeastern Ohio bird locales, aimed as always at the unusual. Holden Arboretum, scene of dependable recent showings by a Bohemian waxwing and a hoary redpoll, beckoned.
Far away as it is, our 5:30 am departure left time for an improvised search for fish crows in some ritzy Cleveland suburbs on the way, before the Arboretum opened. Dawn was a great time to visit there, where the only folks around were black-clad men walking to synagogue on the Sabbath. We cruised again and again the urban streets where the birds had been seen last year, but pretty much struck out; our most unusual sighting was of five deer boldly walking the street in a cosy neighborhood.
Neither on the previous day, nor on internet posts this day, was there any encouraging news that the Holden birds remained, so we determined to perform a sweep of the NE Ohio waterbird sites, beginning at Headlands SP, where on a virtually bird-free walk to the lighthouse we ran into some of the local experts, returning disappointed from a long expedition to the ice-covered lighthouse, informing us that the purple sandpiper—very late in the year for this species historically—had apparently moved on. We saw very few landbirds either, and looked ahead to the twin stacks on the eastern horizon, the Eastlake Power Plant, where we shortly arrived and spent half an hour scanning merganser flocks and visible parts of the gull throngs jamming the warm-water outflow, with middling results (five species).
Our next stop was at Sims Park in Euclid, where an offshore mussel-bed has traditionally hosted scoters and other ducks. As usual, the area looked empty, but with scopes employed eventually revealed all three scoters, and a few flashy ducks. Cleveland Lakefront Park had only scattered flocks of the common gulls. Ditto for the new Wendy Park. Disappointment led us not to spend time on other places.
Unthinkable only a couple of years ago, we drove right by Avon Lake (we found out the next day that Iceland and glaucous gulls had been there), and undertook a fairly complete survey of Lorain Harbor. Gulls were in short supply, with a few thousand gulls of the usual five winter species; we did get the chance to study a dead great black-backed, the world’s largest gull species, in flawless condition in the marina. We added small number of several duck species, and by this time the winds were over 40 mph in gusts and birding was unpleasant, the moreso for expected January species in this era of global warming. The sun was sinking, and we called an official end to a disappointing result for the day.
Our individual party drove south through rural Lorain County, finding nothing at Oberlin Reservoir, and ran into another party at Wellington Reservoir, where as always we added to our waterfowl list, but without any great surprises. Our trip the rest of the way took over three hours on back roads, haunted by dark-time adventures avoiding accidents on the freeway that closed both lanes and four exits.
On this trip we shared high spirits, and high hopes, which by and large overcame some of the puniest results I can recall for an Avids trip at this time of year. It was preternaturally warm and sunny, after all, and there were always birds, and judging by the results of other parties, we did well finding the birds we found in the limited habitats we explored. The short list of 46 species encountered follows.
Canada goose
American black duck
Mallard
Northern shoveler
Canvasback
Redhead
Ring-necked duck
Greater scaup
Lesser scaup
Surf scoter
White-winged scoter
Black scoter
Bufflehead
Common goldeneye
Hooded merganser
Common merganser
Ruddy duck
Pied-billed grebe
American coot
Red-shouldered hawk
Red-tailed hawk
Bonaparte’s gull
Ring-billed gull
Herring gull
Lesser black-backed gull
Great black-backed gull
Rock pigeon
Mourning dove
Belted kingfisher
Double-crested cormorant
Great blue heron
American kestrel
Blue Jay
American crow
Horned lark
Black-capped chickadee
Tufted titmouse
White-breasted nuthatch
Carolina wren
American robin
European starling
Dark-eyed junco
House finch
American goldfinch
Song sparrow
Red-winged blackbird
Common grackle
House finch
American goldfinch
House sparrow