Over most of Ohio the spring migration of songbirds is essentially over --
or the few that are still passing through are so scattered that they are
virtually undetectable.  On the Lake Erie shore, though, the migrant "traps"
like the woodlot at Magee Marsh have a concentrating effect that makes it
possible to detect this low density of late migrants still moving through.
Today (Monday June 4) I made a quick pass through the boardwalk at Magee to
see what migrants I could locate.  The last migrants of spring are a lot
harder to find than the first ones, as the trees and shrubs are now fully
leafed out, the ground cover is getting tall, and most of the straggling
migrants are silent females, not singing males.  But I found a few.  The
following were clearly migrants, not nesting in this habitat or this area of
n.w. Ohio:
Swainson's Thrush 4
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher 3
Canada Warbler 1
Magnolia Warbler 1
White-throated Sparrow 1
The latter was of the white-striped morph and was sharp-looking and alert,
but was not singing the "Oh, Sweet Kimberly-Kimberly-Kimberly" for which
this species is famous.

Also probably migrants were six American Redstarts (three one-year-old
males, three females).  The species does nest sparingly in n.w. Ohio, but
these six were widely scattered, seemingly not paired up.  One of the young
males was actively singing, so it might be attempting to set up a breeding
territory here, but June 4th would be well within the span of active
migration here.  I also noted almost 20 Red-eyed Vireos, most of them
non-singing birds, and undoubtedly at least some of these were migrants, not
summer residents.

The main banding station of the Black Swamp Bird Observatory (about five
miles east of Magee) is just coming to the end of its spring migration
season.  I haven't seen their figures from today yet but I understand they
had about 70 new birds banded, including numbers of migrant flycatchers and
a fair variety of the late warblers.  All of the figures for the spring will
eventually be up on their web site under bsbobird.org. (or bsbo.org)  -
research projects - passerine migration monitoring - 2007 Navarre Marsh
spring migration.

Kenn Kaufman
Rocky Ridge, Ohio

______________________________________________________________________

Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/.

You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]