I arrived at Conneaut around noon yesterday, and was there until dusk. I went and slept in my car at the Kingsville truck stop (you can't sleep at the spit anymore, if you try the police will wake you up for a chat) and returned to Conneaut harbor at dawn today. Stayed until noon today, the sun was out and the windsurfer action was starting up by then. The highlights from yesterday 8/28 were: blue-winged teal, green-winged teal, 2 green herons, 2 juv. black-crowned night-herons, 5+ bald eagles, osprey, Cooper's hawk, 2 soras, ad. Am. golden-plover, 8 semipalmated plovers, ad. willet, spotted sandpiper, ad. red knot, 3 sanderlings, 30 semipalmated sandpipers (only 1 adult), 10 least sandpipers (all juvs.), juv. Baird's sandpiper, 4 pectoral sandpipers (FOS juv.), 3 juv. short-billed dowitchers, great black-backed gull, LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL (third-summer plumage), 4 Caspian terns, and the belted kingfisher that was almost peregrine food the day
before. This morning 8/29 featured 5 n. shovelers, Am. wigeon, hooded merganser, 3 soras, Am. golden-plover, black-bellied plover, 3 ruddy turnstones (FOS juvs.), 4 sanderlings, 2 juv. Baird's sandpipers, willet, red knot, 4 short-billed dowitchers, Wilson's snipe, 3 great black-backed gulls, Forster's tern, chimney swifts, and 3 purple martins. There was also a unique herring gull with pale orange feathering on the hind-neck, wings, and especially the tail. The tail color was similar to a red-tailed hawk of all things. The oddly-colored feathers on this gull were in a symmetrical pattern, and were not the result of staining/oiling/color-marking as far as I could tell. Lasting memory from today--a sanderling "guarding" a big dead fish it was feeding on; at one point, it purposefully probed it's bill into the mostly-empty eye socket of said fish for breakfast. Cool!!!!! Craig
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