March is rightfully regarded as an equivocal month, often retaining a wintry cast—even in these days of undeniable climate warming—in the face of spring’s approach. More than usual, we have to wait until the last minute before deciding on our March outing: will the best bet be snowy owls and boreal gulls, or the first migrants arriving from far to the south? This year, in the absence of any eminently chase-worthy rarity, the flood of eager northbound waterfowl was an obvious choice. Thus, when nine of us assembled for the 18 March 2006 trip our target was the northwestern marshes, where thousands of ducks and geese were pausing in their headlong path to Canada.
First we visited some proven hot spots for migrants, the hot-water outlet at the Oregon power plant, and the offshore feeding grounds at Maumee Bay SP. Neither was satisfactory, as stiff winds out of the northwest had churned up waves the color of café au lait, making the few birds present only intermittently visible. Ottawa NWR was open for one of its monthly auto tours, and we headed that way by default, where the wind would be less inconvenient. Blinding sunlight enabled us to observe some quite distant flocks of ducks and geese and swans—even though heat-waves, especially vexing when temps are near freezing, made them difficult—and our list grew steadily. Most impressive was a flock of 300+ chuckling tundra swans, many of which had wintered at the refuge this year. Signs of spring—territorial male red-wings, meadowlarks, song sparrows, bald eagles, even a few tree swallows—greeted us at every turn.
We doubled back to Metzger Marsh, which despite all its problems does provide shelter for migrant waterfowl, and here we found some big numbers. In excess of four thousand ducks floated in the impoundment, along with a few gulls, Canada geese, and mute swans. There was talk about the possibility of Eurasian wigeons, and before long Andy, checking in a field guide to be sure, announced he thought he’d found one. After some peering, nearly everyone studied the bird, and sure enough it was a nice bright drake, more confusable with one of the many redheads than with the fewer American wigeons; it was a life bird for several. An attempt to get closer to it, and from a better angle relative to the light, along the mighty dike resulted only in the headlong retreat of thousands of ducks who’d survived six months of hunting to our south.
We stopped next at Magee Marsh, where the marsh was fairly empty as far as we could see, as was the lake offshore from the park. We walked part of the Bird Trail, and had pretty good looks at fox sparrows and a nice pair of rusty blackbirds—a species in a mysterious and precipitous decline.
We had enough time to examine the shoreline as far east as Huron, and our next stop was Medusa Marsh, often a haven for waterfowl, but we found it puzzlingly empty. We shot up to a lookout just east of Huron famed for scoter sightings, but found none there among the many nattily-plumaged red-breasted mergansers. Advancing half a mile, we stopped at the Old Woman Creek HQ to look for odd feeder birds and to walk a bit in the trees there, having spent most of the day in the wind in open windy areas: there were practically no birds evident—no titmice, chickadees, sparrows, woodpeckers, nothing. We doubled back to Huron harbor, where we encountered new environs—an open windy harbor crammed with gulls, where the water was blue instead of chocolate-laced. We picked up some new gull species, and scrutinized distant scattered flocks of waterfowl. Though refreshing in a way, the spot didn’t advance our bird finds much, and when we reached our vehicles we found we had decreased our core temperatures enough that a return to home by nightfall looked like a good idea. Our trip list follows:
Canada goose
Mute swan
Tundra swan
Gadwall
Eurasian wigeon
American wigeon
American black duck
Mallard
Blue-winged teal
Northern shoveler
Northern pintail
Green-winged teal
Canvasback
Redhead
Ring-necked duck
Greater scaup
Lesser scaup
Bufflehead
Common goldeneye
Hooded merganser
Common merganser
Red-breasted merganser
Ruddy duck
Bald eagle
Northern harrier
Cooper’s hawk
Red-tailed hawk
American kestrel
American coot
Killdeer
Bonaparte’s gull
Ring-billed gull
Herring gull
Great black-backed gull
Rock pigeon
Mourning dove
Belted kingfisher
Red-bellied woodpecker
Downy woodpecker
Northern flicker
Blue jay
American crow
Tree swallow
Black-capped chickadee
Carolina wren
Golden-crowned kinglet
Eastern bluebird
American robin
European starling
American pipit
American tree sparrow
Fox sparrow
Song sparrow
Dark-eyed junco
Northern cardinal
Red-winged blackbird
Eastern meadowlark
Rusty blackbird
Brewer’s blackbird
Common grackle
Brown-headed cowbird
House finch
House sparrow