The August Avid Birders traditionally is about two things: shorebirds and heat. In times gone by, the Avids participated in so-called “death marches” (although we never really lost anyone) in the wilting temperatures of mid-August. Stories of 90° and 90% humidity are stuff of Avids lore, with some of our long-time members, such as your current author, ready to tell tales of derring-do that always seem to begin with “Now back when I was your age…” Truth be told, though, the last several years have seen quite moderate weather for August Avids trips. This year must have set some sort of record for beautiful late summer days, with sunny skies, temperatures in the mid-70s, and a slight breeze that made being outdoors pure pleasure.
Now about those shorebirds. Eleven Avid Birders met at our usual starting place to head for locations at which these summer migrants had been reported. Our first destination was East Harbor State Park, an unusual location for us, as this particular park is not known as a birding destination. However, water in the Middle Harbor portion of the larger East Harbor was low, exposing extensive mud flats perfect for shorebirds. Other birders in the area had found this resource and reported large numbers of avian visitors throughout the week preceding our trip.
Upon arriving at East Harbor, we were immersed in a throng of vehicles and pedestrians near the entrance, obviously some sort of convention of what appeared to be fishermen. After the usual Avid Birder wrong turn and course correction, we found our way to the lakeside beach where we located on other birding group who already had scouted the area. They directed us to the best viewing spots.
The available map of the park leaves a little to be desired in terms of specificity as to where trailheads can be found. This vagueness, combined with our usual unfailing sense of misdirection, caused us to set a new record for looping around park roads trying to find the correct parking lot. After a few minutes though, we ended up in the right spot and promptly walked the wrong direction on the trail. Improving our health through additional morning exercise, we eventually found our way to the observation deck that we really wanted, set up shop, and were immediately rewarded with nice looks a Red-necked Phalarope. We quickly added several more species, such as Least and Semi-palmated Sandpipers, Short-billed Dowitchers, many Greater Yellowlegs, and – rather bizarrely – a Wilson’s Snipe well out into the water feeding like a dowitcher. Further searching turned up our second phalarope of the day, a Wilson’s.
We next exited the park and drove a very short distance to a different overlook of the same Middle Harbor area. Here we found a reported Red Knot, surely the bird of the day, along with good numbers of Caspian and Common Terns as well as Bonaparte’s Gulls. Oddly enough, we had to look around a good bit to find our first Lesser Yellowlegs amongst the large number of Greaters, a reversal of the usual situation.
We had seen reports earlier in the week of a Little Blue Heron at Magee Marsh and heard rumors of the same bird at the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. We first headed for the Magee Estuary Trail where the Heron had been reported several days earlier, but at the trail entrance ran into a birder who had just searched the same trail and reported no habitat and no bird. Abandoning this idea, we zipped over to Ottawa to see if anything particularly interesting had been reported there, but again had no luck. Normally we might have searched this area ourselves, but we were anxious to head toward flooded fields near Bellevue where scads of shorebirds had been reported earlier in the week.
When we arrived, though, we found that a couple of the areas that had been mud flats were now drying out, while two other smaller areas were now completely flooded. In fact, the water in the flooded areas reached all the way to tall corn that was still standing in the field. Fortunately, we checked the little more closely and were amazed to see several hundred yellowlegs, both Lesser and Greater, looking very much like phalaropes as they swam about just in front of the corn plants. Looking more closely, we saw many of these birds walking between the cornstalks and disappearing behind them quite easily. We finally noticed a few more species, primarily Least Sandpipers, as well as a few real phalaropes, namely Wilson’s.
We checked one other flooded field in the same area without much success and headed for home. On the way, we received word of a Swallow-tailed Kite in Hancock County; one of our cars peeled off in that direction. Considerable confusion surrounded this report, but we were able to track down the location – the Mt. Blanchard Gun Club – and stood surveillance for the next hour or more, hoping that the kite would appear. Alas, it was either off hunting somewhere else or, more probably, had moved on toward more congenial habitat. We did manage to add a few more birds, such as Red-headed Woodpecker, to our day list.
All in all, this had to be one of the most pleasant August Avids trips in memory, and we did compile a respectable list of 63 species, including 14 shorebirds. The entire list follows.
Canada Goose
Mute Swan
Mallard
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Red-Tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Sora
Semipalmated Plover
Killdeer
Spotted Sandpiper
Red Knot
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Stilt Sandpiper
Wilson’s Phalarope
Red-necked Phalarope
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper Pectoral Sandpiper
Short-billed Dowitcher
Wilson’s Snipe
Bonaparte’s Gull
Ring-billed Gull Herring Gull
Caspian Tern Common Tern
Forster’s Tern
Rock Pigeon Mourning Dove
Belted Kingfisher
Red-headed Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Willow Flycatcher
Eastern Wood-Peewee
Eastern Phoebe
Eastern Kingbird
Blue Jay American Crow
Tree Swallow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Bank Swallow
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
Gray Catbird
European Starling
Cedar Waxwing Song Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Baltimore Oriole
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow