Hi all,



I was up in the western marshes and vicinity over the weekend, and will
report some highlights. First, though, a big thanks and congrats to the
organizers and participants of the first Ohio Young Birders Conference, held
Saturday at the new visitors center at Ottawa Nat'l Wildlife Refuge. The
event came off beautifully, and pretty much filled the conference room to
capacity with about 75-80 people, some of whom had come from far-flung
haunts to be there.

Kudos to presenters Ethan Kistler, Auriel Van Der Laar, Phil Chaon, and Andy
Bankert. All were exceptional, as was Emcee Brad Wilkinson. Credit goes to
Kim Kaufman of Black Swamp Bird Observatory for inspiring this, and everyone
who helped. I thoroughly enjoyed the day, and I think everyone else did too.

There were still a number of migrants to be had at the Magee Marsh bird
trail and Metzger Marsh. I saw or at least heard about 20 species of
warblers, including a Connecticut at the bird trail. There were still decent
numbers of late migrants like Chestnut-sided, Magnolia, Bay-breasted,
Blackpoll, American Redstart, and Wilson's. Lesser numbers of Nashville,
Northern Parula, Blackburnian, Black-and-white, Ovenbird, and Canada were
around.

Several Lesser Scaup and one Greater were offshore near Maumee Bay in Lake
Erie, as were a few Red-breasted Merganser. Metzger Marsh remains the
shorebird capital of the area; birds that I saw or heard about there on
Saturday included Black-bellied Plover, Semipalmated Plover, Killdeer,
Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Solitary, Spotted, Semipalmated, and Least
sandpipers, Whimbrel (3), Ruddy Turnstone (70+), Dunlin, and Short-billed
Dowitcher.

Cuckoos are in good to great numbers, with MANY Yellow-billeds about. I must
have seen or heard 30 over the weekend, along with a few Black-billed.

Noteworthy were many migrating Alder Flycatchers; we had perhaps ten of them
on Saturday. A fair number of Philadelphia Vireos are passing through, too.
The Cedar Waxwings are abundant, and many Catharus thrushes are still moving
through, including good numbers of Swainson's and Gray-cheeked along with
several Veery.

On Sunday, a number of us had a fantastic trip to the Oak Openings, and we
had many of the regional breeding specialties like Summer Tanager,
Blue-headed Vireo, Black-throated Green Warbler, Blue-winged Warbler, Pine
Warbler, and Yellow-breasted Chat, along with singing Lark Sparrows. Nice
was a very cooperative Olive-sided Flycatcher; they are late migrants and
should still be watched for. We also made some extraordinary non-bird finds,
but that'll be blog material.

Jim McCormac

Columbus, Ohio




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