Nineteen of us met under the nighthawks of Worthington Square, then set out in sweet weather for the skim and mudflats of Erie and Sandusky counties on 28 July 2001. Reports of 20 species of shorebirds up along Lake Erie led us to devote the entire outing to these seasoned travelers, mostly adults on the way back from northern nesting grounds.
The slanting light was sparkling at Medusa Marsh, our first stop, and the water was rather high from recent rains. Relatively small numbers of shorebirds foraged in the shallower areas, ranks of ominously abundant purple loosestrife forming a gaudy backdrop. Sixty egrets and a roost of gulls and terns on an exposed spit caught one’s eye first, but before long a stalking whimbrel had everyone’s attention, then a pair of still more showy American avocets. Four species of terns—common, Forster’s, Caspian, and a single black still in alternate plumage—were eventually found in the roost, along with a dozen or more recently-arrived Bonaparte’s gulls in near-complete breeding states. One, then two Wilson’s phalaropes were found bobbing in the water; unlike the two seen the day before by one of us, these were in basic plumage, black and white with yellow legs. Only a couple of stilt sandpipers were in attendance, and not a single dowitcher.
We next walked out the old road to the vanished shoreline village at Pickerel Creek WA, where the emergence of some too-shallow water will probably cost some Wildlife administrator his job, but where still more shorebirds had gathered. Here were dowitchers in abundance, and a suspicious individual was exhaustively scrutinized for signs that it might be a long-billed; in the absence offirm evidence, we settled on short-billed. Another phalarope was found, which churned up a whirlpool during our entire stay. Stilt sandpipers were in good numbers, providing an ID clinic. We occasionally walked by wooded areas this day, and here we heard sounds from a yellow-billed cuckoo and a great horned owl to add to our skimpy list of perchers.
Lunch in Huron added the fourth to the standard Lakeside quartet of gulls, a great black-backed. We did another walk in the growing heat at Pipe Creek WA, where one of its pie-wedge impoundments had falling water, lots of stilt sandpipers, a couple of dowitchers, some peeps, and solitary sandpipers and semipalmated plovers to add to our list. Thwarted by the gatekeepers at the amusement park in an attempt to access the Cedar Pt chaussee from the north, we made a daring escape from very brink of the $7 parking lot, darting six vehicles across six lanes of advancing tourists, so swiftly and flawlessly that we elicited not a single honk.
The chaussee had fairly high water too, with reduced numbers of shorebirds. We added marginally to the numbers accumulated thus far, but the big story was a single large rangy bird found 500 yards out on the far shore. Learned discussion ensued, some thinking it was a willet—albeit an oddly-cinnamon colored one in places—and some insisting the plumage tones argued for marbled godwit. Another 150 yards down the causeway got us close enough to realize that a bird’s shape—which doesn’t change—is a better sign than its coloration—which does—and ID of willet was ruled unanimously by the assembled experts, though they did indulge in a half-serious examination of hybrid possibilities.
Time remained for another stop, but other scraps of this habitat were too far away, and we instead split into two parties to stop by Big Island and Killdeer Plains WAs on the way home. Our last collective stop was at a little-known local hidey-hole for cattle egrets among some of the few livestock operations in Erie County, which was successful, and we headed home with fifteen shorebird species, and 89 overall.
