late october birding in the mentor headlands area the last two days has never been better.  usually mid october (from about oct. 11 to 15) sees the peak of fall sparrow migration.  this year this did not happen - until yesterday, oct. 28.  we recorded 12 species of sparrows in the mentor headlands area.  the highlights were - 200+ dark-eyed juncos, nelson's sharp-tailed sparrow, vesper sparrow (rare in the headlands area in october), 25+ swamp sparrows, and a good influx of american tree sparrows.  other very good birds noted on oct. 28 were a very late northern waterthrush, two (2) orange-crowned warblers, and a fly-by red phalarope at mentor lagoons.  we usually have one or two days in the month of october with a good movement of hermit thrushes - that also occurred yesterday with 50+ in the area.  yesterday few ducks were moving along lake erie.  today (10/29) that dramatically changed with at least 20 species of ducks in the area.  all three scoters were seen along lake erie as well as 225+ green-winged teal and 40+ northern pintail.  there was also a strong movement of dunlin (287) along the lakefront.  sparrows again were prominent with 90+ dark-eyed juncos in the headlands beach state park area alone among the at least 9 species of sparrows found today (10/29).  most interesting (and frustrating) was a very brief sighting of a lone empidonax flycatcher along the coast guard road today. my initial reaction was least flycatcher but caution on this sighting is the rule of thumb.

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