i hit Gordon Park today w/ 2 of my seventh grade
students who were the winners of a bird ID contest
that i ran in my class this week (birds we might encounter
today) and we had fun! the temps were in the mid 40's and
there was HARDLY a breeze to be felt - NO WAVES, just
light rippling in the whole lake!!
 
arrived @ launch @ 2:15 to immediate treat of 1 Eared
and 5 Horned Grebe. Within minutes we were able to locate 
and ID 5 more Horned. in that area (launch and eastward) we also
encountered Red-breasted Mergansers in the bay area in varying
numbers - all together there were at different times easily 75.
the male to female ratio has continued to drop as the week
progressed - today's ratio was probably closer to 1.5 : 1.
The grebes alway had more females then males in the groups.
there were 2 killdeer in the parking lot when entering.
 
we then drove to the first parking lot west of the ICYC.
in the NW corner of this bay was 1 Mute Swan, 8 Horned Grebes
8 mallards (all paired up) and hundreds of gulls. we were able to
ID 1 Lesser Black-backed Gull and at least 4 Bonaparte Gulls. we
walked up the breakwall/ledge to the point on the wall. we found
1 hidden Pied-billed Grebe under the docks. all of this paragraph was
for the area north of the docks and to the short breakwall. hundreds
of gulls on and around the docks and flying (noisy!).
 
we set up vigil at the end of this point and concentrated our attention 
eastward and slightly northerly (not yet looking to open water). as we
sat at least 60 RBGs flew in and swam and fished. along the shore to
Dike 14 we located 11 more Horned Grebes, 4 Bufflehead, 1 Wood Duck,
10 Canada Geese, and saw 1 soaring Red-talied Hawk and 2 Turkey Vultures
over Dike 14.  Double-breasted Cormorants made a few fly-bys (10-ish).
6 more Mallards were found along the D14 shore as well.
 
we then walked back westward and paid attention to the north and open
water as well. we encountered 6 more Horned Grebes near the shore,
as far as we could see in our binos were the ever present RBMs and gulls.
we encountered at least 4 more Bonies and we started to notice increasing
numbers of DB Comorants. the longer we stayed, we began to notice the 
groups flying started to increase in size. when we started, the DBMs were solo or
pairs - now there were lines up to 15. all told we probably saw 60 DBCs.
we walked within 100 feet of the discharge canal and same old story.
only gulls and RBMs. on the far out breakwall it seemed like every rock 
held a gull. today was definately a Red-breasted Merganser day - i would 
estimate the total being somewhere near 500. gulls outnumbered the RBMs.
only able to find the few non-RB and Herring gulls.
 
i'll be there tomorrow @ 7:45 with a few of the Cleve Audubon Spring Walk
leaders before the annual Leaders' meeting if anyone's interested.
 
buster                                            
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