Eighteen bleary-eyed souls met at 5:30 a.m. in the Worthington Mall parking lot in restless anticipation of a full day of shorebirding. For one of your fearless leaders, this was his first trip since last December and despite being extremely tired, he was raring to go. After a quick decision to move all of our vehicles a few miles north to avoid the art fair at the Worthington Mall (thanks Bob!), we were off. Everyone made it to Maumee Bay SP without incident, but we were not the first people to visit the lovely beach and its “bacteria in the water–stay out” signs. Several joggers had already been through and sent the gulls and terns swirling. If there were any turnstones, sanderlings, willets, etc., they were long gone by then. At any rate, we sifted through the returning gulls and terns and noted the presence of both common and Forster’s terns. A few killdeer roamed the grassy field–a place where we normally look for buff-breasted sandpipers–and a flock of ~250 double-crested cormorants lounged in the bacteria-infested water.
We moved on to Ottawa NWR for our annual death march out to the Crane Creek estuary. Fortunately, the weather was favorable (i.e., not 95 degrees) and our spirits were high. Bill Whan summarized our walk to the estuary thus: “In the morning mudflats were extensive, the creek’s channel a well-defined and narrow sinuous strip of deeper water. The southwest wind gusted fitfully, and it was cloudy, with pressure changes building. Pectoral sandpipers and yellowlegs, mostly lessers, made up the bulk of the migrants present. The dowitchers seen were short-billeds, nearly all of them bright newly-arrived juveniles. We found three adult red knots, all now in their winter feathers. The stilt sandpipers by now had a few fresh juveniles among them. Most least and semipalmated sandpipers, though their numbers were surprisingly few, were vividly-plumaged young birds. About half a dozen adult black-bellied plovers, in various stages of molt, were joined by at least one [American] golden-plover. Dozens of semipalmated plovers fed out on the drier mud of the flats. Killdeers were ubiquitous. We found a sanderling, and a dunlin–not the odd albinistic dunlin reported earlier–but no phalaropes, godwits, or other scarcer species.” We did find a molting common shelduck though. After a near collision with a seemingly monstrous vehicular convoy of government officials and mudflat gawkers out on the dikes, we worked our way back around to the parking lot and into our vehicles. Our stomachs were beginning to growl so it was decided that everyone would gather at Crane Creek SP for lunch and another view of the “stay out of the water” signs.
Crane Creek SP wasn’t all that busy for midday Saturday. In fact, a majority of the beach combers belonged to a group of birders from Holmes and Wayne Counties. We soon joined them for lunch and swapped stories of the day’s events. A few antsy folks decided to try out the Magee Marsh WA boardwalk in hopes of some migrant songbirds and a reprieve from staring at mud. Although it was only mid-August and it was beginning to get warm, the Avids teased two vireo species and four warbler species out of the now impenetrable thicket of garlic mustard, stinging nettle, and grapevine. Not a bad haul. There were no turnstones or sanderlings on the beach (bacteria?) and it soon became time for us to continue eastward.
Recent reports had us heading to Medusa Marsh WA to look for an American white pelican which had been sporadically seen there. We found the area described by others who had seen the bird and had a temporary moment of glory when we spotted a large white bird out in the water. Much to our chagrin, the big white bird turned out to be one of the big white menaces of the Lake Erie marshes–a mute swan. Shortly the one became two as vegetation gave way to another feathered aquatic buffalo and we were taken aback by the awe-inspiring sight. To add to the excitement, an osprey wheeled around the area and posed in a nearby snag for all to see and a black-crowned night-heron flew into the marsh from an adjoining area. We toured the area and viewed the marsh from all visible angles for the pelican but failed to turn up our elusive quarry. Wanting to erase this little moment of defeat we trudged over to the Cedar Point chaussee where we could view more shorebirds and get honked at by the locals who drive 20 miles per hour over the posted speed limit.
A group of Amish birders we had talked with at Ottawa had beaten us to the chaussee and it was almost difficult to find a parking place along the road. Everyone managed, however, and we soon took to the road like a marching line of soldiers. Instead of M-16s we carried tripods and scopes, instead of field manuals we carried field guides, and instead of hand grenades…ooh, we could have used some of those earlier in the day. Anyway, we assembled near the already scanning Amish folks and began sorting out the shorebirds in the distance. Distance is the operative word here as most of the birds were in the fresh mud which was almost nearer to Sheldon Marsh than the chaussee. It didn’t take long for someone to find the previously reported marbled godwit, and people who had never seen one before managed a few oohs and aahs even though the bird was a half-mile away. We tallied two plover species and eight sandpiper species here, with nothing more exciting than the godwit. A search of the west side of the chaussee turned up one and then two black terns with the small group of common and Forster’s terns. Two northern shovelers added to our waterfowl count for the day and we finally tallied a turkey vulture here. We only got honked at once during our stay; maybe there has to be 35 people out there before the locals will actually slow down a little and yield to the pedestrians. Satisfied that we had combed through everything visible, we went our separate ways.
Several cars did go through Medusa Marsh again, hoping that the pelican had returned to its previous haunts. Unfortunately, the pelican hadn’t arrived and the swans hadn’t left. We made one last scan and then our vehicle decided to check out Big Island WA on the way home. Because we investigated Medusa Marsh again we weren’t able to go through Bucyrus and take part in its renowned bratwurst festival. What a disappointment! At any rate, we went to the easternmost impoundment of the old section of Big Island and walked the dike north to look for shorebirds. The weather was still comfortable and we did turn up 113 individuals of eight species. There was nothing of major interest here though. Soon, we continued south to Columbus and found our way to the vehicles we had abandoned that morning. More than 14 hours and 91 species later we compiled the following list:
A = Maumee Bay SP
B = Ottawa NWR
C = Magee Marsh WA
D = Medusa Marsh WA
E = Cedar Point Chaussee
F = Big Island WA
R = seen en route to that destination.
