I ended up with a Trip List of 99 species, 19 of them warblers. I missed the Kirtland's Warbler by 1.5 days, the Mourning Warbler, the Golden-winged Warbler, and the Black-billed Cuckoo by hours, the Canada Warbler by minutes, and numerous other birds that should have been easy for numerous other reasons.
I missed getting my life Orange-crowned Warbler twice. A guy on the board walk told me he was "90% sure" that the tiny, backlit bird way, way high in the tree tops was an Orange-crowned. My own personal rule for Life Birds requires that I see the bird well enough to be able to ID it again in the future. I couldn't do it, so I didn't count it. Two days later, I saw a small, drab warbler working the edge of the parking lot, and thought I had an Orange-crowned. I studied it carefully, looking for every possible field mark. I narrowed it down to two species, and talked to Kim Kaufman in the BSBO office to help me confirm or deny my ID. I thought I had it, but on further review, I have decided I didn't seen the undertail coverts well enough to determine their color, and the rest of the field markings and behavior have made me conclude I had a female Tennessee instead.
I did pad my trip list a bit by counting two birds seen only "in-hand" at the banding demonstration put on by Black Swamp Bird Observatory.
The tent set up just outside the BSBO building was crowded with observers, and I only stayed a few minutes. I picked up photos of this Northern Waterthrush, held by Kim Kaufman
and this Black-capped Chickadee held by Mark Shieldcastle. I was trying to show its field marks, including the white frosting on the wings. Bill Thompson, III calls that mark a "hockey stick," and I can never see in the field. I prefer to use the smudgy edges of its bib, compared to the clean lines of a Carolina, but that photo was unusable.
I got a decent shot of a male Baltimore Oriole along the causeway at Metzger Marsh, but the female flew before I could bag her. I took very few pictures on this trip. It rained most of the time, and when it wasn't raining, the light was terrible.
My favorite photo was of these Barn Swallows, who were assessing the housing potential of the sign on the door at the Bird Center at Magee Marsh. This door opens and closes every couple of minutes all day long in spring, and I imagined the conversation went something like this:
male: "Honey? What about here? This looks like a good spot."female: "No, I told you over and over again. There is too much traffic here."
male: (mutters under his breath)
female: "What? I heard that. What did you say?"
male: "I said, 'Yes, dear.'"
female: (flying off) "My mother was right about you."
My complete trip list:
Canada Goose
Trumpeter Swan
Wood Duck
Gadwall
Mallard
Blue-winged Teal
Bufflehead
Ruddy Duck
Ring-necked Pheasant
Pied-billed Grebe
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Cooper's Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Sora (HO=heard only)
Common Moorhen
American Coot
Killdeer
Spotted Sandpiper
Solitary Sandpiper
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Least Sandpiper
Dunlin
American Woodcock (doing his "sky dance")
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Black Tern
Forster's Tern
Mourning DOve
Chimney Swift
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Least Flycatcher
Eastern Phoebe (HO)
Eastern Kingbird
Warbling Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Blue Jay
American Crow
Horned Lark (HO)
Purple Martin
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Bank Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
House Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Veery
Gray-cheeked Thrush
Wood Thrush (HO)
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Brown Thrasher
European Starling
[warblers]
Tennessee (female)
Northern Parula
Yellow
Chestnut-sided
Magnolia
Cape May
Black-throated Blue
Yellow-rumped
Black-throated Green
Blackburnian
Palm (female)
Bay-breasted
Blackpoll (female)
Black-and-white
American Redstart
Prothonotary (pair at nest cavity)
Ovenbird
Northern Waterthrush
Common Yellowthroat
[19 total warblers]
Eastern Towhee (HO)
Chipping Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throaed Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Rose-breasted Grosbeak (3 M/2 F at one feeder)
Indigo Bunting
Bobolink (!)
Red-winged Blackbird
Eastern Meadowlark
Yellow-headed Blackbird (female; 1st Ohio)
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole
House Finch
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow
total 99 species
I also saw lots of birders, including both old friends and new. I had a lot of fun meeting and birding with Alan Davies, a professional bird guide from Wales (they call birding "twitching" over there, you know) and hearing his stories. He and his wife took a year off work to travel and bird the world, in an attempt to break the record for the number of species seen in a calender year. The previous record was 3662; Alan and his wife, Ruth Miller, beat that on Oct. 31, 2008. Their final total was 4341! You can read about "The Biggest Twitch" here.
My 100th bird of the trip was a Life Bird, and it was well worth the two hour detour from NW Ohio to Columbia Station Reservation in Lorain County, just west of Cleveland. This was it, a Purple Gallinule, a tropical/subtropical bird that has no business being in northern Ohio. This one has been hanging around a Metropark for a couple of weeks, and it became my own personal "twitch" to chase down this vagrant.
Can you find the bird in this mess of spatterdock?Well, I did, and it was great!
Those of you who read my blog for my (occasional) bird posts are going to be a bit disappointed. I get my new puppy tomorrow, a 10 week old female Boston Terrier named "Panda," and I predict the blog will be filled with puppy stories for quite a while. I'll try not to gush too much or grouse too often, and I'll try to mix up puppy tales with pottery and nature, too.
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