Thanks to Bill Whan and Craig Holt for perspectives on shorebird migration
in the state.  Craig mentioned that there had been a "deafening silence"
regarding shorebirds in Ottawa and Lucas Counties so I thought I'd provide a
little more info from here.

This area had extremely heavy rains in June and the beginning of July, and
extreme lack of rain since.  Flooded farm fields in Ottawa Co. held large
numbers of shorebird migrants (e.g., hundreds of adult Lesser Yellowlegs and
Short-billed Dowitchers) in mid-July but those fields dried out rapidly
thereafter.  Water levels were high through August in the most visible areas
of Metzger Marsh and Magee Marsh; there were obviously pockets of habitat
back in the interior of the marshes, judging by the numbers of Lesser
Yellowlegs and others flying around calling, but they weren't easily
viewable from the roads.  The Crane Creek estuary had limited habitat,
mostly because of high water levels in Lake Erie and the creek itself; I
haven't been out there recently to see if it has improved.  A lot of
shorebirds were using Ottawa NWR:  on the single impoundment where
researchers have been banding, I saw 21 shorebird species (and hundreds of
individuals) on just three visits, including Marbled Godwits, Long-billed
Dowitcher, and Buff-breasted Sandpiper.  Since this area wasn't generally
accessible to the public, I didn't see a reason to say much about it on the
listserve; but the Refuge staff makes it a point to provide stopover habitat
for shorebirds, even though this has to be juggled with all the other
demands of managing wetland areas.

Birders often concentrate on the areas with the best viewing, rather than
the areas with the best actual habitat, so some of us here in Ottawa County
have been slipping over next door for easy looks at thousands of shorebirds
in Sandusky, Seneca, and Erie Counties rather than prowling around the edges
of our local marshes.  This probably contributes to the sense of nothing
being reported in Ottawa / Lucas Counties.

I agree with Craig that it was heartening to see good numbers of juveniles
of several shorebird species, indicating that they had a good breeding
season.  I was impressed to be able to count 55 juv Stilt Sandpipers in one
sweep of the telescope at Bellevue on Aug. 22, and five juv Baird's
Sandpipers at another spot on the same date.  There also have been excellent
numbers of juv Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers and Lesser Yellowlegs.  It
remains to be seen what will happen with numbers of some other species whose
juveniles tend to arrive later than August, such as American Golden-Plover,
Dunlin, White-rumped Sandpiper, and Long-billed Dowitcher.  Speaking of the
latter, I had only one adult Long-billed during August (and no juveniles
yet), despite a lot of careful looking and listening.  Adults should be
staging and molting in NW Ohio during August, as Bill mentioned, and I can
only hope that they were back in the marsh somewhere and out of sight --
perhaps in some of the more extensive impoundments at Ottawa NWR, where I
had my one bird for the season.

Kenn Kaufman
Oak Harbor, Ohio

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