Mary and Renee and others make good points about migration that
beginners should heed. Magee Marsh's near-unique patch of habitat
deserves fame for its rather brief concentrations of certain northbound
migrants, but it is hardly a one-stop shop for this continent-wide
phenomenon. As an earlier poster pointed out, down this way spots like
the Shawnee SF and Clear Creek MP do not have the same gobs of
pass-through migrants pausing to feed before dealing with Lake Erie, but
they have very rich breeding populations--of warblers, for example--that
arrive long before Magee gets them, many of them breeders much less
often seen farther north. Magee gets a lot duller every June (and for
quite a while thereafter), especially for warblers, but by late April in
Shawnee pine, prairie, yellow-throated, ovenbird, c. yellowthroat,
worm-eating, cerulean, n. parula, blue-winged, La. waterthrush, hooded,
yellow, black-and-white, chestnut-sided, Am. redstart, Kentucky, y.b.
chat--many of these among the most sought-after at the Lake--are nesting
at Shawnee: singing, courting, building nests, feeding young, present
for weeks and weeks at a time. The Clear Creek area has all these, plus
nesting Canadas, Blackburnians, black-throated greens, magnolias,
veeries, blue-headed vireos, and more---all on territory for months.
Between them, that's twenty species of warblers on territory, with the
others passing through. If you relish glimpses of tanagers and cuckoos,
they breed here, not just passing overhead.
        In recent autumns our humble municipal reservoir near Columbus has
often bested mighty Ottawa for shorebird diversity, and access, too; it
has the largest concentration of breeding prothonotary warblers in the
state. Birders in many other parts of the state can add innumerable good
migrant spots near home, including large numbers of migrants that stop
to nest locally. And migrations start, as Mary points out, in the
winter, and continue in one way or another the rest of the year, in
uncrowded places all over the country, places worthy of praise and
protection for hosting birds in every month. Renee reminds us that less
migratory species may be seen year-long, too, often close to home, if
you learn where to look.
        I hope no one's interest in birds is over and done with after a day or
two in one small corner of the world, or broadcast on a single channel
of attention.
Bill Whan
Columbus


Marys1000 wrote:
> Irealize that spring migration is more of a fast clump than the more drawn
> out fall.  But aren't there still early birds and
> middle birds and late birds?  Ducks first, then what shorebirds..then
> warblers (or is that reversed?)
> So what is the "best" weekend would vary right?  Aren't some things already
> up north by May?
>
> Mary

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