Being retired, we picked the last good daily forecast for the
immediate future to go birding in Northwest Ohio, namely Friday,
March 19th.  The "we" being Paul Berrigan and myself.  We birded from
Maumee Bay State Park in the Toledo area to Sheldon Marsh east of
Sandusky.  In many ways a surprisingly unproductive day.  We had 64
species and had to work for them. Typical March arrivals still hard
to come by.  For example we had no Great Egret, Bonaparte's Gull,
Phoebe or Fox Sparrow despite being on high alert for them.  On March
12th, Metzger Marsh was wall to wall waterfowl; seven days later they
were basically gone.  There were still some waterfowl concentrations
to be found, notably the east end of Veller Road at Ottawa Refuge,
Pickerel Creek on  Highway 6 and at Pipe Creek on Sandusky Bay.  So
much for what we did not see. On to what some of what we saw:

Tundra Swan--numbers down from seven days ago but still several
hundred in the Ottawa Refuge/Magee Marsh/Metzger Marsh area.

Blue-winged Teal--only 2; one at Veller Road; one at Pipe Creek.

Northern Shoveler--the numbers up significantly in past week.

Red-breasted Merganser--one male off beach at Crane Creek/Magee Marsh

Pied-billed Grebe--2 at Metzger Marsh was it for the day

Double-crested Cormorant--one at Pipe Creek

Great Blue Heron--still in low numbers.  Three at Pipe Creek was the
biggest group

Red-shouldered Hawk--the species was on the move today.  We had five
birds in flight from Maumee Bay State Park to Magee Marsh

Coot--115 at Pipe Creek were the only ones we picked out.

Sandhill Crane--one in flight over east end of Veller Road

Greater Yellowlegs--2 in the morning on extensive flats on Toussaint
Creek on Lemon Road east of Magee Marsh.  Not there in afternoon.

Woodcock--one seen along boardwalk at Crane Creek

Tree Swallow--in numbers under five at various places from Maumee
State Park to Pickerel Creek.

Red-breasted Nuthatch--one at Sheldon Marsh

Lapland Lonspur--a single bird feeding on the outer dike at Pipe Creek

Eastern Meadowlark--one on Krause Road by Ottawa Refuge

Rusty Blackbird--seen and heard at a number of locations but in
numbers far below 15 years ago .

Cheers,

Karl Overman
Farmington Hills, Michigan
www.karloverman.com

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