Hi Everyone,
Inspired by the recent posts by other birders, Beth and I went out yesterday
morning (July 5) to bird the old Richfield Coliseum site in Summit County.
For people on other parts of the state who might not know this site, it¹s
right at the intersection of I-271 and Rte 303‹just northwest of the
intersection. It¹s a fair-sized meadow, and while you won¹t have a large
number of species there, what you see during migrations and in the nesting
seasons for grassland birds can be very good. But be advised that there is
very little shade there, so if you go to see the grassland birds on a nice
hot sunny summer day, make sure to cover up and bring water.
A little OT, while a lot of the ground is dominated by vetch and other
invasive non-native plants, there is such a nice variety of grasses and
sedges there‹and in the autumn of asters‹that we¹d love to see some
naturalist-led tours to help identify the flora. As expected, there was also
a variety of butterflies and a few odonata.
But I digress‹ birds. We had five target birds, and managed to see all but
one of them. The only one we didn¹t get was Grasshopper Sparrow, and I
wonder if we were there at the wrong time of day to hear them...
The birds we had were:
American Robin
Blue Jay
Red-winged Blackbird‹the dominant bird, many individuals including a good
number of fledglings.
Common Yellowthroat‹at least 3-4 heard
Tree Swallow
And the target birds:
Sedge Wren‹several singing birds, and we had good looks at two individuals
Henslow¹s Sparrow‹quite a few singing birds‹at least 8 or 10, probably more.
On the west side of the fence that runs through the middle of the meadow,
the singing was pretty constant.(There were a lot more Sedge Wrens on the
west side as well.) We had several good looks at 3 or 4 different
individuals. I wonder if they have chicks or eggs in nest right now, as it
seemed to me that some of these birds were being intentionally visible, and
a couple of times we noticed that flight‹straight away and suddenly turning
back‹that I¹ve been told is associated with protecting nests.
Bobolink‹two individuals, singing
Eastern Meadowlark (well, presumably Eastern)‹several individuals in
different places around the meadow.
We ended the morning feeling hot and thirsty, but happy.
Best wishes,
Steve Cagan
Cleveland Heights, Cuyahoga County
--------------------------------------------
Steve Cagan, photographer
[log in to unmask]
www.stevecagan.com
www.pbase.com/stevecagan
216-932-2753 (USA)
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