Paul Gardner and I went afield after rare sparrows today. Pickerel Creek
WA was slow, with mostly large flocks of migrant tree swallows and black
birds; a peregrine was a flyover. Huron harbor had some incipient gull
gatherings, with only some of the usual suspects--no Bonaparte's; a
dredge was working the harbor, so there was some disturbance. The west
end of Medusa Marsh had both yellowlegs, and potential for more.
        Lorain harbor was as bereft of gulls as I've ever seen it. The
impoundment supplied some excitement, however, as at the first stop
(near the outdoor john where we saw several sharp-tailed sparrows last
year, but seems too dry to invite them now) we began seeing very large
numbers of sparrows. The numbers were a thousand-plus; we wished for a
dozen more observers so all could be more carefully studied.
White-throated and white-crowned sparrows--and far more song sparrows
than this spot would supply during the breeding season, were everywhere;
many were still in song. We walked the loop, seeing no standing water,
only fields of smartweed, seedling cottonwoods, goldenrod, dogwood, and
of course the advancing stands of phragmites. The sparrows loved it; we
saw examples of how many seeds smartweed produces when we passed over
some tarpaper. There were a few warblers, flycatchers, sapsuckers, but
sparrows are the game there now. I think Le Conte's and almost certainly
Nelson's are ruled out by the dry conditions, as are shorebirds--we
didn't encounter even a killdeer. But it's a great place to practice
snap IDs of other sparrows. We had field, swamp, Lincoln's, towhee,
junco, tree, white-throated, and white-crowned aplenty. I had a
too-brief look at a probable clay-colored and even what may have been an
northern wheatear. A recommended walk.
        A drive down 58 produced more big flocks of tree swallows, including
one quite late cliff swallow--carefully observed with scope while
perched to make sure it wasn't a cave swallow--at Oberlin Reservoir,
nothing of great interest at Caley Reservation, and at Welllington
Reservoir the expected coots (~400) and ruddy ducks (~300).
Good birds to all,
Bill Whan
Columbus



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