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August 2011

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From:
Kenn Kaufman <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Kenn Kaufman <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 30 Aug 2011 02:57:00 +0000
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Hello Birders,

Maumee Bay State Park (Lucas Co., n.w. Ohio, on the Lake Erie shoreline just east of Toledo) is well known as a concentration point for terns and gulls, but it gets less recognition as a shorebird spot. That may be partly because shorebirds never seem to be there in large numbers; this evening, for example, I was there for an hour and a half, and never had more than 20 individuals visible at any one time. But what Maumee Bay lacks in quantity, it sometimes makes up in quality. This evening, Monday August 29, I had ten shorebird species there between 6:45 and 8:15, including a couple of notable ones.

I arrived less than 90 minutes before sunset, and wound up spending all my time out on the Lake Erie beach. Shortly after arriving I found a juvenile Red Knot and a juvenile Buff-breasted Sandpiper associating with three juvenile Sanderlings right along the shoreline. (This is slightly unusual habitat for the Buff-breasted, which is really more of a "grasspiper." Some birders will recall the 4 Buff-breasteds that were at Maumee Bay for an extended period in early fall 2005; those birds were almost always on the grassy lawns uphill from the beach.) All of these birds were soon flushed by people, but I found them again at the west end of the beach, along with some other birds. Sherrie Duris and John Sawvel came over, and we had good studies of these birds at close range. At one point we had the Red Knot, the Buff-breasted, and two Baird's Sandpipers all in the same binocular field, not a bad combination for Ohio!

Species recorded:
Semipalmated Plover 4
Killdeer 14
Lesser Yellowlegs 3 (flyby)
Ruddy Turnstone 1
Red Knot 1 juv
Sanderling 7 juv
Semipalmated Sandpiper 3 juv
Baird's Sandpiper 2 juv - regular here on the beach at this season
Pectoral Sandpiper 2 (flyby)
Buff-breasted Sandpiper 1 juv

Terns were oddly scarce today, with only 3 Forster's and 4 Caspian. I saw no gulls except Herring and Ring-billed, but a Laughing Gull was here a few days ago. Right at sunset, a single Osprey flew over heading west.

Clearly this park is worth checking for shorebirds. If you go there, it's worthwhile to spend some time slowly working along the length of the Lake Erie beach, and also to look at the inland beach just to the south (the yellowlegs and Pectorals probably came from there, and the Red Knot probably went there during a period when it disappeared from the lake beach). And if you go there during the next few days, keep an eye out for stray White-tailed Tropicbirds, since Irene seems to have displaced quite a few of them along the Atlantic Coast!
Kenn Kaufman
Editor, Kaufman Field Guides series
http://www.kaufmanfieldguides.com/
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