The "Biggest Week In American Birding", I believe, had to have been the largest and most attended, birding social event, ever! A tour thru the parking lot at the Magee Boardwalk area was like visiting an art festival. Vanity license plates from over thirty states, including a car with Hawaii plates, and several Canadian provinces. It was exciting visiting with so many present birding friends and meeting so many new ones! It was definitely the ultimate birder gathering. In past years, my wife Denise and I, have only attended the warbler extravaganza on consecutive saturdays. This year we decided to attend the event for ten days, from friday afternoon May 7th thru sunday morning May 16th. It was worth it! During this period we recorded 170 bird species, which included 29 warbler species. Other wildlife bonuses were a Blandings Turtle, a Fox Snake, and Swamp Darner dragonflies being feasted upon by Great Crested Flycatchers and Catbirds. At the beach were numerous Carolina Saddlebag dragonflies. The sightings were at locations in Ottawa, Lucas, Erie, and Sandusky Counties. We stayed in our motorhome at Camp Sabroske with our seven Sun Conure parrots; 89 species of birds were recorded just at the campground. The obvious #1 highlight of the stay was the Kirtland's Warbler found by Kenn Kaufman at Magee East Beach. It's hard to say what was more exciting, the Kirtland's or witnessing the mass pilgrimage of people up and down the beach to view the bird. Stories could be told of the many adventures had here! Following twitter with up to the minute bird sightings was a new way to seek out rarities. Each time something different was posted it was like going on a scavenger hunt to find the bird; most times we met with success. Highlight #2 was encountering a human blockade on Stange Road on saturday afternoon. The road was completely blocked with birders looking to view some Upland Sandpipers. Between the people and a lot of the cars, no one in a vehicle could get by. Oh, would the Ottawa County sheriff loved finding this! Highlight #3 was watching the dumpster diving Black-crowned Night-Herons behind the Marathon station east of Black Swamp. A fish cleaning area provides the fish scraps they go after. How hilarious! The biggest advantage of a longer stay was being able to have time to visit new locations, and revisit on a daily basis the hotspots, which had an ever changing variety of birds. We will do it again!!!

 

Bob Lane / Damascus,Ohio   
                                          
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