Went up to the Lakefront today from central Ohio with Aaron "coldfoot" Boone and Dave "slagermeister" Slager on a mini arctic expedition. Perhaps you could call me Ben "salvagedSnowy" Warner. We all braved the cold with joy and stoic toughness. We started off the day with the gull stadium at E. 72nd Street (9:00 am) where there were several other birders including Gabe Leidy. We had some good birds there in spite of the constant snow. Worth noting that the Bonaparte's gulls are not around lately (We did see 3 or 4) and the ice is all the way in leaving only a hole in the ice leading to the warm water outlet. This Provided close views of the fishing gulls and a few waterfowl. Pretty fun to just look out with the naked eye and pick out a first year ICELAND GULL or a nice adult GLAUCOUS GULL. Next we headed east towards Eastlake Powerplant. The viewing was good there with a good variety of Waterfowl to sort through, my favorites being the many Canvasback, 3 Merganser species and the BLACK SCOTERS (3). Also some good gulls to look at (see list below). On the way we stopped by Sim's Park for some reason and all we saw there really was a Hairy Woodpecker. We moved down to the Chagrin Reservation park/Nature Center to see some feeder action and we had about a dozen Pine Siskins, and other usuals. Also in the area was a nice look at a juvie Red-tailed Hawk and a juvie RED-SHOUDERED HAWK. I cajoled my hearty cohorts to make a last of the day stop at Burke Lakefront Airport back i
n Cleveland and we went. The sky cleared a bit and the sun came out, I was determined to find a snowy owl. It was somewhat reminiscent of last time I was up there: last ditch effort, my fellows had returned to the car, and I got lucky with the snowy owl. There he was way off towards the eastern end of the airport, a lovely very white SNOWY OWL, probably a male. This was at about 4:00pm. I waved the fellas back to where I was on the highground near the s-curve of marginal road and we all got to see him. He was atop a small pile, near the back hoe, at the highpoint from a birders view right before the lake. We drove closer and got a better look, good stuff. abbreviated list follows:
E. 72nd St.
Iceland Gull - we estimated 10 first year birds
Thayer's Gull - good looks at an adult, and at least one maybe two first years.
Glaucous Gull - 1 adult and multiple beautiful youngsters, 2nd, 3rd winter birds
Lesser Black-backed Gull - 4+ birds in several plumages, 2nd, 3rd winter and adult
Bonaparte's gull - 4
Great Black-backed Gull - Lots of them, many further out 1000?
Ring-billed Gull - 1500
Herring - 8000
Red-head - 40ish
Canvasback - 20ish
Greater Scaup - 20
Lesser Scaup -20
Hooded Merganser -1
Ringneck duck - 2
Bufflehead - 3
Com. Goldeneye- 3
American Coot - 4
D.C. Cormorant - 1
Herring x Grt. Black Backed gull - 1 prob. h
ybrid.
Eastlake Powerplant
Am. Black Duck - 10+
Mallard - 35
Canvasback - 350
Redhead - 200
Ring-necked Duck - 10
Greater Scaup - 125
Lesser Scaup - 300
Black Scoter - 3
Bufflehead - 80
Com. Goldeneye - 60
Red-breasted Merganser - 15
Common Merganser - 2 drake
Hooded Merganser - 1
Ruddy Duck - 2
Pied-billed Grebe - 2
am. Coot- 2
Bonapartes Gull - 1 (yes only one)
Ring-billed Gull - 500
Herring Gull - 2500 (and a possible Herring x Glaucous gull)
Iceland Gull - 4 first winters
Glaucous Gull - 3, one 2nd winter 2 1st winter
Great Black-backed Gull - 100.
Burke LAP
Snowy Owl - 1 male adult (possibly bird reported by Dan "sanderling" Sanders Jan. 5thish)
Northern Harrier - 1 adult male
Am. Kestrel - 1
Cooper's Hawk - 1
Peregrine Falcon - 1
Cheers, and happy winter birds to you all.
- Ben Warner
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