The summer doldrums, the dearth of hot news, the lack of dynamic weather systems that might blow a rarity our way—none stopped 14 of us from convening for a highly speculative birding trip. With only one of us burdened with the role of trip leader, a detailed handout of the morning’s routes and stops was prepared, and walkie-talkies were deployed; I later found—again—that having “definitive” information led to a disorganized trip in which people got lost, and that radios offered only an illusion of contact. Memo to other trip leaders: avoid too many details in information, even communications devices; everybody will get there best if you just lead the way, and allow others to keep you within sight.
We stopped first at Big Island WA, where upland sandpipers failed to keep their appointment, but other grasslands species—dickcissels, grasshopper and Henslow’s sparrows, etc.—did. We had a harrier—they must be nesting locally—and a small flock of shorebirds doing the best they could in a sky-pond. On the 15-mile trip to Killdeer, half the cars took different routes, but we ended up together. Our car saw two more harriers along the way, along with a fair-sized colony of red-headed woodpeckers at a fairly new location at Killdeer. We did little more than confirm—aurally—the presence of sedge wrens at Killdeer before we took the long haul to our next stop, along Sandusky Bay at Pickerel Creek WA.
A bit of shallow water and mudflat off the observation tower at Pickerel Creek yielded some more shorebirds, including the first reported fall American golden-plover, and a walk out to the Bay found a roost of 17 black-crowned night-herons, a dozen bald eagles, marsh wrens, and yellow-billed cuckoos. At the Bay, we were intrigued to see 11 Bonaparte’s gulls, some in adult and immature summer plumages, some in basic—an unusual number—along with Caspian and Forster’s terns.
We straggled into a rendezvous further east, losing one carload for good, and after discovering the Chaussee was flooded, converged at Pipe Creek WA, where a nice collection of shorebirds, including an American avocet in high breeding plumage, was found, as well as an alternate-plumaged male bobolink and the resident common terns.
The Death March at Ottawa was next, made surprisingly pleasant by mild temperatures and a nice northeast breeze. The Crane Creek estuary was deep in water and birdless except for cruising terns. The northeastermost impoundment inside the public loop path had been drained, ostensibly for shorebirds during the spring (kudos to the managers at Ottawa); the draw-down was too abrupt however, and left 95+% dry areas with only a deep pool in the NW corner, where gulls and terns of the expected species—plus three Bonaparte’s gulls—gathered. We did notice good numbers of hungry shorebirds feeding along the edge of a deep canal on the northern edge of the next impoundment to the west, and wearily schlepped out to have a look. There were 250+ short-billed dowitchers, lots of yellowlegs and least sandpipers, and couple of snazzy alternate-plumaged stilt sandpipers. A green heron and a few snowy egrets had brought our day’s list to 99 species when we reached the parking lot. People were wondering if I’d compromise my principles to add the introduced trumpeter swans we’d seen, just to reach 100. Thank goodness Troy promised cliff swallows along the Toussaint River on the way home, and delivered. Late results from our lost participants brought the day’s total to 102, and while we hadn’t found any of the hoped-for rarities, it was a pleasant outing with a lot of birds.
