A friend, who’s asked for anonymity because of the ignominy of it all, and I had scouted the Lake Erie shore the day before our 12 November Avids trip. Great was our disappointment, as our list after hours spent in this bird-rich area during a normally great period for bird diversity reached only into the thirties. We didn’t even see a cardinal. We leaders ditched plans for a traditional Lakefront trip in favor of scouring the reservoirs in the western counties—C.J. Brown, Indian Lake, Grand Lake St. Marys, Metzger, Ferguson, Lost Creek, Findlay, etc.—because we’d found they often host good numbers of waterfowl migrants, as well as strays from the West like odd gulls, geese, grebes, cranes, etc.
Not all of us, I found, were as fond of crows as I, but most enjoyed watching the big roost in Springfield, 50 thousand strong, arise with the sun from sleep and descend upon the town to clean up food scraps before gathering in talkative gangs to head out to forage in the countryside. As did we, while the sunrise tinged with tangerine and pink the innumerable contrails from Columbus International Airport overhead. Buck Creek State Park got us started with small groups of waterfowl, a few shorebirds, some gulls, and looks at the antics of hunters. Indian Lake next provided more of the same, with gunners blasting away a hundred yards off the swimming beach. We’d gotten most of the way to the Lima Reservoirs when Brad’s phone rang. It was Troy Shively, prodigal Avids member who was freebooting that day; he wanted to find out where we were, and tell us of a marvelous find.
Thrilled to hear we were only 20 miles away, he described a great mixed flock of geese at a small quarry. He said he had snow geese, a lot of white-fronted geese, a probable Ross’s goose, and a cackling goose! He reported that even as he spoke more birds were scaling down from the heights to join the throng. We instantly reversed our course and raced to the site, where Troy crept from his car to show us a grass-ringed lake with hundreds of ducks and geese bobbing around or lounging on the green. Our excited cries spooked the birds before we’d had the chance to examine them all, and we watched them rise, squawking with many voices, and retire to ponds across the highway about half a mile off. Off we went, and found ourselves thwarted by hills and high corn from good views, but Troy talked with a farmer who let us drive down a lane to look into his pond.
We spent an hour and a half sorting through the 400+ waterfowl present, and came up with 42 white-fronted geese (four of the Greenland race), nine snow geese (three of them the blue morph), three Ross’s geese (plus one apparent hybrid with snow goose), and the cackling goose, a pygmy version of the Canada goose that bobbed like a chick beside its giant maxima brethren. We also ticked off canvasback, redhead, and green-winged teal to add to our duck list. Pipits passed constantly overhead, calling. It was sunny and warm, and the west wind—which must have pushed many of these geese east of their usual migratory path—rose a bit. The white-fronteds and the Ross’s were life birds for a few, and the cackling goose a new Ohio bird for others, and it was a pleasure to study these beautiful wary birds on their way to the wintering grounds.
After this, the rest of our sojourn lapsed into anticlimax. We visited three Lima reservoirs, adding only a few ducks to our list. Strangely, no Franklin’s gulls—another western stray we almost expect on such a trip—were found. A final fillip—a search for open-ground wintering birds such as Lapland longspurs and snow buntings, etc.—in Wyandot County was unavailing, though we did see unusual concentrations of calling horned larks in the fields. We could have stopped at Killdeer to see if the first short-eared owls had begun hunting the fields there, but as we weighed the uncertainty of their arrival, the time involved, and the success we’d had already, we chose to drive back to Columbus happy enough. Our list of 62 species was itself nothing to brag about, but quality reigned over quantity this time. And we did see a lot of cardinals. Here is the list:
Greater white-fronted goose
Snow goose
Ross’s goose
Cackling goose
Canada goose
Mute swan
Gadwall
Mallard
Northern shoveler
Northern pintail
Green-winged teal
Canvasback
Redhead
Ring-necked duck
Lesser scaup
Bufflehead
Red-breasted merganser
Ruddy duck
Common loon
Pied-billed grebe
Horned grebe
Double-crested cormorant
Great blue heron
Red-tailed hawk
American kestrel
Ring-necked pheasant
American coot
Killdeer
Least sandpiper
Dunlin
Bonaparte’s gull
Ring-billed gull
Herring gull
Rock dove
Mourning dove
Belted kingfisher
Red-bellied woodpecker
Downy woodpecker
Northern flicker
Blue jay
American crow
Horned lark
Carolina chickadee
Tufted titmouse
White-breasted nuthatch
Brown creeper
Carolina wren
Golden-crowned kinglet
European starling
American pipit
Cedar waxwing
Yellow-rumped warbler
American tree sparrow
Song sparrow
White-throated sparrow
White-crowned sparrow
Dark-eyed junco
Northern cardinal
Red-winged blackbird
House finch
American goldfinch
House sparrow