We hit Castalia Pond yesterday and headed east from there. On the way into Castalia along Rt. 101 we had a large flock of Horned Larks. We turned around and pulled over and the flock consisted of approx. 110 Horned Lark, 35 Snow Bunting and 10 Lapland Longspur. Waterfowl at Castalia included:
Canada Goose - hundreds, about a third of the birds started to fly out while there.
Gadwall - 9
American Wigeon - 12
American Black Duck - 15
Mallard - plenty
Northern Shoveler - 21
Northern Pintail - 1 lone drake
Redhead - 6
Ring-necked Duck - 1 lone drake
Lesser Scaup - 2
Bufflehead - 9
From there we stopped at Cedar Point Causeway. The only open water there was at the two bridge overpasses.
Black-crowned Night-Heron - 7 (5 adult, 2 juv - the birds are close to the road sitting on the rip-rap rocks - easy to miss unless you get your vehicle tight to the guardrail for the passenger to view)
Double-crested Cormorant - 12 (also tight on the rocks)
Canada Goose - plenty eating shad
American Black Duck - 3
Mallard - about 30
Canavasback - 6
Redhead - 3
Lesser Scaup - 6
Greater Scaup - 1
Common Goldeneye - 3
Ruddy Duck - 1
Continuing east of Cedar Point along Lake Erie there was a smattering of ducks in Lake Erie - mostly Canvasback. There were plenty of ducks at the condos at the end of the road, mostly Mallards but also:
Canada Goose - high numbers
Mute Swan - 2
Tundra Swan - 12
American Black Duck - 15
Redhead - few
Canvasback - second most prominent duck to Mallard
Lesser Scaup, Bufflehead and Common Goldeneye in fewer numbers
Bald Eagle - 1 adult flying and 5 juveniles together riding the ice floes
From there we headed to Avon Lake. Along the way there on Rt. 6 we had a Sharp-shinned Hawk chasing House Sparrows in Sheffield Lake. Avon Lake had very few gulls and all were Herring & Ring-billed. Also had one Peregrine Falcon there. Waterfowl there:
Canada Goose, American Black Duck, Mallard, Canvasback, Redhead, Lesser Scaup, Bufflehead, Common Goldeneye, 1 drake Hooded Merganser & 3 American Coot.
As reported yesterday, E.72nd. St. was mostly devoid of any gulls. Small numbers of Herring & Ring-billed, but we did have 1 juv. Great Black-backed Gull there and the resident Peregrine Falcon was zipping around. Waterfowl there:
Canada Goose, Mallard, 4 American Black Duck, 6 Gadwall, Redhead, Canvasback and Lesser Scaup were low in numbers. There was open water out near the far breakwall point that had a nice group of waterfowl in it, but it was too far to bring this group in with the scope to get any identifying field marks.
We finished up the day looking for the resident Merlin at Calvary Cemetery in Garfield Hts. and were rewarded with a male bird up in the top of a crabapple tree plucking and eating what appeared to be a junco.
Douglas W. Vogus & Michelle Zager - Akron, Ohio.
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