I spent a few hours visiting most of the shore accesses around the northern part of Hoover Reservoir (NE of Columbus) this morning. The dropping water levels have exposed a good mud fringe at most spots, and heron/shorebird potential for this area looks good. I stopped at Oxbow Island, Plumb(Wiese) Rd, Area N Boardwalk, Redbank Rd/Eastside Yacht Club, and the Sunbury causeway; Redbank has the most mud exposed, with a rather large, sinuous mudflat that you need to go off-trail to see. Wiese Rd and the west Galena bridge are under re-construction, so those areas are inaccessible. Highlights included:
Herons - 24+ Great Blue Herons, 11 Great Egrets, and 5-6 Green Herons, with each of them at nearly every stop.
Raptors - nothing in the way of migrants, but 2 Osprey were still hanging out near the Area N boardwalk, while a juvenile Bald Eagle was perched along the shore at Redbank.
Shorebirds - plenty, with 90+ Kildeer leading the way:
Kildeer - 90
Semipalmated Plover - 2
Spotted Sandpiper - 5
Solitary Sandpiper - 8
Greater Yellowlegs - 1
Lesser Yellowlegs - 12
Pectoral Spr - 25+
Least Spr - 10
Semipalmated Spr - 10
Larids - about 100 Ring-billed Gulls scattered around this part of the reservoir, but more interesting were 4 Caspian Terns and 1 BLACK TERN
Waterfowl - little other than cormorants, of which there were about 30 scattered over 4 different sites
Migrant Landbirds - 14+ E.Kingbirds, mostly in small flocks on Oxbow ISland and along Redbank Rd
2 Brown Thrashers on Oxbow Island
6 Baltimore Orioles, with half of those on Oxbow Island
No obvious migrant warblers, but 2 Prothonotaries were still calling along Redbank Rd.
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