Little Blue Heron at Magee

There was an adult Little Blue Heron at Magee Marsh (Ottawa / Lucas counties, n.w. Ohio) this afternoon (Friday April 20). It apparently was seen by other people during the day; when I saw it about 5:30 p.m., it was west of the causeway in the marsh, just north of the first (southernmost) pullout on the east side of the road (or, the first major pullout that you come to as you drive north across the marsh toward the beach and boardwalk). An American Bittern was calling repeatedly in the same general area, but I didn't see it. At least one Barn Swallow and a couple of Northern Rough-winged Swallows were seen with the Tree Swallows in the same area. Large numbers of Blue-winged Teal and both Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs are present now.

Scanning the lake from the beach north of here, I saw at least a thousand Lesser Scaup but was unable to find any Greaters. A substantial minority of Greater Scaup accompanied the Lessers there as recently as a couple of weeks ago.

Re: Forster's Tern dates in Ohio

I'm grateful to Bill Whan and Vic Fazio for going to so much effort to confirm that I was correct in my comments about the timing of Forster's Tern arrival. To recap: they pointed out that there are a few records at the end of March (notably early) and more for the first week of April (on the early side), so that multiples in northwest Ohio on April 12th would be, as I wrote earlier, right on time.

As birders, we often have a tendency to focus on early and late records rather than on the normal timing of migration. These extreme records are more fun, but from a biological standpoint they're not as important. As an example of the "fun" aspect: last fall, as I reported on this listserve, I found a Yellow-billed Cuckoo at Metzger Marsh on October 31 (not Nov. 1, as reported in the Ohio Cardinal). That cuckoo was a very late bird. It didn't set a record -- the species has been found in Ohio in November a number of times -- but these occurrences notwithstanding, the important thing to note is that the vast majority of Yellow-billed Cuckoos have departed for the south before the middle of October. We know that because a lot of observers have gathered a lot of information over multiple years. This points up the great value of keeping notes and recording the numbers of individuals that we find each day, not just the extreme dates for each species, to try to get a picture of peak numbers and the actual span of the typical migration season for each bird.

When we talk about timing of migration, we have to avoid falling into the trap of making generalizations about the state of Ohio as a whole. There are substantial differences in timing in different regions of the state. In spring, some migrants have returned to southern Ohio in numbers before there's any hint of them in the northern tier of counties. But even at the
same latitudes, there can be differences. In looking at two local publications, Birds of the Cleveland Region (by Larry Rosche) and Birds of the Toledo Area (by Matt Anderson et al.), I frequently find that they give slightly different timing for the migration of a given species. Part of that may be coincidence, with the data skewed by a few odd records, but part of it may reflect genuine differences between northwestern and northeastern Ohio. And in an era of changing climate, the timing of migration may change in unpredictable ways in the future. It's always worthwhile for birders to keep detailed records on the occurrences of birds in their own area, and not just assume that the important stuff already has been determined elsewhere.

Forster's Terns, Ottawa Co

Right now there are large numbers of Bonaparte's Gulls in Ottawa County, northwest Ohio, over the agricultural fields as well as around bodies of water. Today (Thursday April 12) I stopped to look at about 100 Bonaparte's Gulls on the south edge of Oak Harbor, where Highway 19 crosses the Portage River, and saw two Forster's Terns foraging in the same area. These were the first I've seen locally this spring (although Sheryl Young had a probable Forster's over by East Harbor State Park, a few miles east of here, a couple of days ago). According to Birds of the Toledo Area by Matt Anderson et al., April 12 is the local early record for Forster's Tern, so these birds were seemingly right on time as arrivals. The two that I saw were full adults -- with complete black caps and uniformly silvery upper surface of the primaries -- which is what I would expect the first arrivals to be, based on experience elsewhere.

Metzger gnatcatchers and Gadwalls

With limited time this evening (Monday April 2) I ran out to the end of the road at Metzger Marsh (Lucas Co., east of Toledo). Saw a handful of expected migrants in the small woodlot there, such as 5 Yellow-rumped Warblers, 2 Brown Creepers, 1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet, 1 Winter Wren. Surprised to see two Blue-gray Gnatcatchers there, male and female, foraging more or less together. Matt Anderson et al. in "Birds of the Toledo Area" give the early record locally as April 3, while the early record listed by Larry Rosche in "Birds of the Cleveland Region" is March 31, so April 2nd seems about right for the very first migrants to appear -- possibly early overshoots, a week or two ahead of the main migration.

On the way out I scanned the open waters of the marsh for ducks. I had checked Metzger several times this spring in hopes of a Eurasian Wigeon, but even American Wigeons have seemed to be in low numbers. However, I was surprised (because I hadn't seen Vic Fazio's post yet) by the prevalence of Gadwalls. They were by far the most numerous waterfowl there, and when I did a careful sweep with the scope I came up with a conservative count of about 1320 Gadwalls, outnumbering all the other ducks combined. (When I checked the listserve later, I saw that Vic had estimated 850-plus here the day before, even without the benefit of a scope.) These are far higher numbers than what have been published in the past and I presume there's something unusual going on with the species this spring. Peterjohn's "The Birds of Ohio" mentions that aerial counts in November in the western Lake Erie marshes have had totals as high as 1700 Gadwalls, but these aerial surveys cover a lot of area, and to have 1300-plus visible from one spot on the ground implies that exceptional numbers are present.

Ottawa County Pectorals and others

In Ottawa County (n.w. Ohio), just east of the entrance to Crane Creek State Park and Magee Marsh Wildlife Area along Route 2, Benton-Carroll Road takes off to the south. Just south of Rt 2 on both sides of Benton-Carroll is an area that floods regularly and is often good for shorebirds and other waterbirds. Today (Monday March 26), in addition to various ducks (such as Hooded Merganser, not your typical flooded-field bird), there were five species of shorebirds: about 10 Killdeer, 2 Wilson's Snipe, 5 Greater Yellowlegs, 9 Lesser Yellowlegs, and 3 Pectoral Sandpipers. None of these is unexpected for the date, as all should be here by late March. Eastern Meadowlarks (at least 2) were calling from the adjacent fields. In a partially flooded field just to the south I saw at least 300 Rusty Blackbirds along with Red-wings and others. It seemed like a plausible spot to look for Brewer's Blackbird, but in a careful study I couldn't pull out even one Brewer's.

Pectoral Sandpiper merits an additional comment because it's in a different category from most of our early spring migrants. Across all groups of birds, most of the species that come north early are those that spend the winter relatively close to us: most ducks, geese, Killdeers, American Woodcocks, Eastern Phoebes, Tree Swallows, Red-winged and Rusty Blackbirds, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Hermit Thrushes, etc., etc., all are common in winter in the southeastern United States. For that matter, so are Wilson's Snipes and Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs. Pectoral Sandpiper, on the other hand, doesn't winter regularly anywhere north of the Equator -- its main wintering range is in southern South America. It may show up in the same damp fields as Killdeer and snipe, but chances are it has come ten times as far to be here. The breeding range of Pectoral Sandpiper is mostly above the Arctic Circle, so it's hard to understand why it starts north so early. It's especially interesting to compare its timing to that of White-rumped Sandpiper, which has similar wintering and breeding ranges but migrates north much later; peak numbers of White-rumpeds here may occur in the first week of June! At any rate, among our early migrants, Pectoral Sandpipers (and the American Golden-Plovers that should follow shortly) deserve special credit as our first arrivals from truly southern latitudes.

Magee area Fox Sparrows

The Lake Erie shoreline in northwestern Ohio at the end of March has to be the best place and time in the world for seeing Fox Sparrows. Today (Monday March 26th), Rick Nirschl reported seeing or hearing about 70 Fox Sparrows along the bird trail at Magee Marsh. I only spent a brief time along the west end of the boardwalk so I only saw about 20 Fox Sparrows there, but I had another 50-plus in thickets along the Wildlife Beach, about a quarter-mile east of the east end of the boardwalk. So there are clearly a lot of individuals around. This kind of concentration would be considered quite unusual in most places; Fox Sparrow is usually uncommon everywhere, seen in small numbers, seldom more than a dozen in a day.

The last couple of springs at this time I've been interested to see how the migrating Fox Sparrows are concentrated along the immediate lake shore. Even a mile or two to the south, far fewer individuals are seen. These migrant birds seem quite shy, flushing well away from the boardwalk at Magee, so it takes some careful attention to even notice that they're around, but they're beautiful enough to be worth the effort. Today a number of the Fox Sparrows were doing partial versions of their musical, haunting song, even in what I could only describe as the heat of the afternoon.

Trio of late migrants

Kim and I had been out of town (Autumn Weekend at Cape May) and I should have been catching up on work, but a glance at the weather patterns of the last few days prompted me to go out and see if any odd birds were around today (Tuesday October 31). None of the birds that I saw would be considered rarities for Ohio, but three were very unusual for the end of October. In the small woodlot at the end of the road at Metzger Marsh, I saw one each of Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Eastern Wood-Pewee, and Yellow Warbler.

My source for expected dates here is Birds of the Toledo Area by Matt Anderson et al. (2002), backed up by info from The Birds of Ohio by Bruce Peterjohn (1989) and Birds of the Cleveland Region by Larry Rosche (2004). Yellow-billed Cuckoos are essentially gone from the area by the middle of October, although there is a mid-November record for Toledo (and other November records for Cleveland and elsewhere in the state). The latest dates listed for Eastern Wood-Pewee are October 14 for the Toledo area and October 26 for the Cleveland area (Peterjohn's latest date listed for the state is October 21). Considering the lateness of this bird, I studied it carefully for the possibility of Western Wood-Pewee, but it looked typical for an Eastern in all respects. Yellow Warbler is a very early fall migrant, with most leaving northwestern Ohio before mid-September. The late date listed for the Toledo area is November 1, although there are later records elsewhere in the state, but any individual in October has to be considered late. Remarkably, Brian Zwiebel had seen and photographed a Yellow Warbler at Maumee Bay State Park, just a few miles west of Metzger, Oct. 26-30. Looking at his photos, I think my bird was probably a different individual.

This concentration of late dates raises the question: are these just lingerers that haven't made their way south yet, or could they be birds that came up from farther south on the recent strong southwesterly winds? The latter kind of phenomenon is believed to occur at some heavily birded spots on the Atlantic Coast, where strong south winds in fall are often followed by records of such "late" birds. In this case it can't be proven, but I didn't see any of these birds on multiple visits to Metzger in mid-October, so it's possible that they came north in recent days.

Aside from these three, there were very few migrants in the woods at Metzger. The most interesting were a Blue-headed Vireo (also rather late, but not strikingly so) and an Eastern Towhee. A handful of birds seen in a scan of Lake Erie from the end of the road included at least 20 Forster's Terns, 2 Common Terns, one Caspian Tern (getting late), 2 Common Goldeneyes, 14 Lesser Scaup, and 30 Ring-necked Ducks. All of these birds were some distance offshore.

Hermit Thrushes, Com. Moorhen, northwest Ohio

With limited time today, I went out to the small patch of woods at the end of the road at Metzger Marsh, Lucas County. This woodlot on the edge of Lake Erie is small enough to concentrate any migrants that are in the area and it gives me a quick read on what birds are moving. The bird of the day there today (Friday Oct. 20) was unquestionably Hermit Thrush -- I saw / heard at least 50 in an area of woods that can't be much more than an acre in size. Several times there I had five or six visible at once. No other thrushes (except robins) were seen or heard.

Later I heard that this had also been a huge day for Hermit Thrushes at the main Black Swamp Bird Observatory banding site, on the shoreline of the Navarre Unit of Ottawa NWR, about 10 miles east of Metzger. But Kim and I checked out another wooded site south of Magee Marsh, a mile or two south of the lake, late in the day, and had only a few Hermit Thrushes, so the species may have been quite localized along the lakeshore itself.

At Metzger and south of Magee, Ruby-crowned Kinglets were abundant today, far outnumbering Golden-crowns. Other migrants were in expected numbers. The Metzger woods had one Orange-crowned Warbler (foraging in the goldenrods) and one Blackpoll Warbler along with the Yellow-rumpeds, as well as an Eastern Phoebe, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, and five Brown Creepers.

Out on the marsh itself there are still hundreds of American Coots, and I saw one Common Moorhen with them. According to published reports, moorhens were common in the Lake Erie Marshes half a century ago, and late October would have been well within the expected span of dates; but these days the species occurs here only in very small numbers in summer, so the date seemed notable.

Notes on fall migrant concentrations

The boardwalk at Magee Marsh is justly famous as a concentration point for migrant songbirds in spring and fall. The boardwalk runs through a prime section of woods on the beach ridge between the marshes and Lake Erie, and on a typical day in migration season the beach ridge will have a relatively high concentration of birds compared to areas away from the lake. But that isn't the case every day, even in peak season.

Case in point, based on my own observations and those of various other people that I talked to. Yesterday (Thursday Aug. 31) the boardwalk was very slow for migrants, and this morning (Friday Sept. 1) there was only a moderate amount of activity there. But on both days there were good numbers of migrants just a short distance to the south, only one to two miles south of the lake front. In trees around the BSBO headquarters (just north of Route 2 on the road in to Crane Creek / Magee Marsh), Kim and I saw numerous warblers including Wilson's, Blackpoll, and Blackburnian, plus Philadelphia Vireo, Veery, and various other migrants. At Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, at the parking area for the old office and hiking trails, there's an excellent little swampy woodlot just west of the parking lot. In a short visit this morning I saw a good variety of warblers including Black-throated Blue, Canada, Tennessee, Wilson's, Bay-breasted, Mourning, and lots of Magnolias, as well as Gray-cheeked and Swainson's Thrushes and Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. On both days, I think I would have been disappointed if I had confined my birding to the boardwalk.

It may be that the very strong northeast winds on Thursday pushed birds away from the lake. The point of this post is just to advise anyone who makes a long drive to bird at the Magee boardwalk: if it's unexpectedly slow, it doesn't mean you should turn around and go home. It's worth checking other spots just a mile or two south of the lake shore to see if the concentrations might be temporarily shifted inland.

Shorebirds and their habitats

On Saturday the 19th, the Black Swamp Bird Observatory held a workshop on shorebird identification, and after the indoor presentation we had a follow-up field trip out into the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. Our purpose was to study the i.d. of the birds, not to run up a big list, but still we had 16 species of shorebirds. Highlights included both species of dowitchers (with five adult Long-billeds in various stages of beginning to molt, and some beautiful juvenile Short-billeds looking typical of the expected bright race hendersoni), molting adult Stilt Sandpipers, a pristine juvenile Baird's Sandpiper, and a very odd Wilson's Phalarope -- apparently a juvenile that had gotten discolored by some oil or some other pollutant, giving it some very dark marking on one side of the head. (In terms of seasonality, the rarest bird was a female Bufflehead -- there are no August records listed in Birds of the Toledo Area by Matt Anderson et al.) Some participants in our workshop also got to see a Marbled Godwit out on the Crane Creek beach before or after the event.

There has been some good discussion recently about creating artificial habitat for migrant shorebirds. As one who moved from the middle of the Sonoran Desert to the middle of the Lake Erie Marshes, I've had a lot of occasion to think about artificial vs natural habitats (and especially natural-but-managed habitats) for shorebirds. When I lived in Tucson I could go out and expect to see virtually every shorebird within 30 miles, because they were all on a few artificial wetlands. Here in northwest Ohio I can never hope to see more than a fraction of the thousands that come through within a few miles of my house. Rare shorebirds, paradoxically, are harder to find here than they were in the desert. But there's no doubt that in terms of total populations, this region is far more important to the birds than Arizona ever could be.

Several people have made good points about the fact that it's possible to create shallow impoundments and flats that are ideal for attracting and viewing migrant shorebirds in an area where no such habitat had existed before. I fully agree. But I also want to point out that the same principles that apply to an artificial sewage pond of a few acres can't be applied to a marsh complex of thousands of acres. I can't speak for the people who manage Ottawa NWR or the state wildlife areas, but my understanding is that they intended to have some good flats available for shorebirds close to the roads, just in an attempt to please the birders, but they were stymied this year by the extreme weather -- record-breaking precipitation in July, followed by sudden drying in August. The people managing these areas have to deal with a lot of challenges, including changing lake levels and lots of invasive nonnative plants, and it appears to me that the managers are doing a good job of providing for wildlife. I wouldn't want to see Ottawa or Magee or Metzger chopped up into a lot of little sewage-pond square sections just to make the birders happy. Sure, it would make the rare shorebirds easier to spot, but it wouldn't mean there were actually more of them there; and it would do away with the habitat for the King Rails, American Bitterns, Least Bitterns, Common Moorhens, Black Terns, Yellow-headed Blackbirds, and other birds that really need the marsh.

There are a lot of shorebirds in the refuges and wildlife areas and state parks of the Lake Erie Marshes right now. Most of those birds are out of sight for us most of the time. The best habitat for birds is not always the best habitat for birding, and that's an important distinction to learn. As conservationists we should favor the welfare of the birds over the short-term ease of birding, so that we'll have birds to watch in the future.