Well, too bad I missed the King Eider action and AGAIN missed Purple
Sandpipers although Dan Sanders and I did look for them at several
stops along the lake west from Huron where we started out. There wasn't
much at Huron, just saw a lot of Fly-by R.B. Mergansers and what seemed
to be a wounded Black Duck. Duck hunters were out, and we saw some
gulls, just Ring-billed, Herring, and Bonapartes, but not large
numbers.
         We saw about 50 COMMON GOLDENEYE near Port Clinton I believe.
We drove onward and checked out the fields around Metzger Marsh where
we saw a few hundred Horned Larks and then about 6 Tundra Swans in the
marsh area. Also a few Bald Eagles, plus some juv. Eagles out on the
ice.

       Things really picked up when we decided to walk out the dikes to
the estuary area and inlet to the lake at Ottawa. Getting out of the
car we saw about a Hundred Tundra Swans fly by then when we walked
further out we had some fly right over head and lit up by the evening
sun they were a lovely sight, honking away as they went. There were
Hundreds of Canada's out there too. Then a white Helicopter flew by
over the marsh and got up some geese and ducks. Lots of Mallards and
then we noticed a different looking flock, scanning with Bino's we
could see some white snow-geese in the large group. Yes! that was a
target bird for us there. I got the scope on them and took a closer
look at the flying flock of 50 birds to discover that They were all
SNOW GEESE with a lot of Blue phase birds. I counted 50 birds in the
flock, pretty sweet. Then a bird flew by and it caught my eye as being
a bit differently shaped, luckily it landed down near the  dike in some
trees (Near the viewing platform on the first E/West perpendicular dike
you come to as you walk straight out from the parking lot at the
Headquarters brown house) and I could clearly see in the scope that it
was a NORTHERN SHRIKE. A very nice looking bird, we watched it dive at
something inthe grass and then fly to the other side of the dike and
perch on a stake. Very nice in the sunlight at 4:00 pm.

   As we hiked out further we found a lot of frozen water, AMERICAN TREE
SPARROWS everywhere, Downy Woodpeckers, and about another Hundred
lovely TUNDRA SWANs. On one section we had all of a Group of Tundras,
then 2 Trumpeter Swans, and next 5 Mute Swans, for a nice size
comparison. We could see leg bands on the Trumpeters. On the way thru
we also saw Muskrat, O'Possum, White-tailed Deer, and some more
Mallards, Can.Go.'s, and Black Ducks. We had several BALD EAGLE adults
fly by close and also some RED-Tailed HAWKS, and NORTHERN HARRIERS (2)
fly past. We had about 15 GREAT BLUE HERONS, and on the way out we
heard a GREAT HORNED OWL hootin'. What a beautiful sunset it was and
especially enhanced by the continued presense of fly over Tundra Swans
as we walked.
      Lovely day,
Good birding, and yes, I finally did see that WESTERN TANAGER yesterday
morning. Good stuff.
          - Ben Warner
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