What a grand day it turned out to be, all night we had rain in the Sandusky Area, but somehow we managed to squeak by with slight drizzles and plenty of dry cloudy weather for the field trip this morning to Sheldon Marsh. Jim McCormac, Paula Lozano, and I led the field trip as part of the Warbler Symposium (which was a great success). We took the straight service road/old road bed to the right (east) of the kiosk, which parallels the golf course. Migrants were there in force! We had about 19 observers in all so plenty of eyes to scour the underbrush with. 17 warbler species, and 3 Vireos, best of these groups being Golden-Winged Warbler and Philadelphia Vireo respectively. The GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLER alone was worth the price of admission, great spot Paula! The spritely fellow had hopped onto the low power line for a moment to give most of the group a breath-taking view. The place we saw it was maybe a quarter mile down the track. Another odd "line" bird of the day was juv. Green Heron who in typical young Green Heron fashion remained boldly on the line for a while as our group all gathered to gawk. There were several adults in the marsh below, as well as a pair of adult Bald Eagles. All along the way it seemed, the trees twitched with those tiny miracle birds, feeding like crazy to fuel their marathon flight ahead. Blackpoll Warblers were there in great numbers, and I tried to picture the long over sea 3 day journey that many of them were soon to undertake, it just seems impossible. Good luck friends.
Cedar Point Chausee (which as Bill Whan posted is a bit of a pain to bird- worse than the parking and the walk were the biting flies!() As Bill described for Brad, the birds were on the east side of the causway chausee, and many of them. The Hudsonian Godwits were there (i had 9) as were 1 Red Knot (juv) 1 White Rumped S.p., 1 Western S.p., 1 Dunlin, 1 Bairds, 9 Stilt S.p., SB Dowitchers etc.
List of highlights:
Blackpoll - 20 or so? lost count
GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLER - 1 Ad. male
Blackburnian Warbler - 2
Canada Warbler - 1
Yellow Warbler - 1 late bird on the Chaussee as well as at Sheldon
Chestnut-Sided Warbler - several
Tennessee Warblers
Nashville Warbler - 1
Cape May Warbler
Magnolia
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Black-Throated Green
Bay-breasted - 6
Am. Redstart
Com. Yellowthroat
Wilson's Warbler - 4
Black-and White Warbler - 3
Indigo Bunting - 1
Rose-breasted Grossbeak - 1
Red-breasted Nuthatch - 2+
Swainson's Thrush - lots 80?
Wood Thrush - 1
Veery - 1
Philadelphia Vireo - 2
Warbling Vireo - 2
Red-eyed Vireo - 40+
Great-Crested Flycatcher
E. Wood-Pewee
Least Flycatcher
Willow Flycatcher
E. Phoebe
Baltimore Oriole - 1
Com. Grackle
RWBlackbird
Gray Catbird
Wood Duck
Mallard
etc.
Cedar Point Chausee (pullover to view before you cross the waters into the gravel)
HUDSONIAN GODWIT - 9 some with reddish belly feathers left
RED KNOT - 1juv.
WHITE-RUMPED S.P. - 1 molting adult I believe
Dunlin - 1 (some black belly left) first of fall for me
Semipalmated S.p. - 50
Least - 5
WESTERN S.P. - 2
BAIRD'S - 1
STILT S.P. - 9 in various stages of molt
Pectoral - 6
Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs
Short-billed Dowitchers - 10
Semipalmated Plover - 7
Am. Golden Plover - 1 juv.
Northern Pintail - 4 (basic)
GW Teal - 3
BW Teal 10
Wood Ducks - 15
Hooded Merganser - 1 female
Common Terns - 80ish
Forsters Tern - 40ish
Caspian Terns - 40ish
Bonapartes Gull - 4
etc.
I got some ok digi-scoped pics from Cedar Point, I'll post them when I get back from Conneaut tomorrow night sometime.
Then I gots to go back to work :-/ Sorry if I left stuff out, I know I probably did.
Good Birding,
- Ben Warner
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