There was an excellent variety of waterbirds at Conneaut harbor & Mosquito L. today, although numbers remain modest. At Conneaut from 7:00 AM to 1:45 PM -- n. shoveler, 4 green-winged teal, double-crested cormorants, green heron, 2 black-crowned night-herons, osprey, 4 bald eagles, black-bellied plover, 3 semipalmated plovers, AM. AVOCET, 3 greater yellowlegs, lesser yellowlegs, 7 ruddy turnstones, 8 sanderlings, 5 semipalmated sandpipers, 6 least sandpipers, 6 BAIRD'S SANDPIPERS, a juv. RED-NECKED PHALAROPE, 11 Caspian terns, belted kingfisher, and a few purple martins. Shorebirds moved early in the morning, then there was a lull, then more movement from ~10:40 AM until 1:15 PM. Only a handful of the shorebirds were adults, most are juveniles now. The young avocet has been there for 17 days by my reckoning. The red-necked phalarope plopped down just about right in front of me close to the spit shoreline. It spent the whole morning feeding
along the inside of the west breakwall--alternately swimming, walking on the rocks, doing some half-spins, and making short, erratic flights. Fascinating to watch! There were very few people around until after noon, actually more birders than beachgoers in the morning. When it started getting crowded, I headed south towards Mosquito L. On the way there I saw a couple Am. kestrels in Wayne Twp. in southern Ashtabula Co. I viewed Mosquito L. from the Hoagland-Blackstub Rd. pull-off and the nearby parking area opposite the end of Mahan-Denman Rd. Birds there included wood ducks, 10 blue-winged teal, 2 green-winged teal, 5 hooded mergansers, 5 great egrets, green heron, black-crowned night-heron, numerous great blue herons, osprey, spotted sandpiper, 2 solitary sandpipers, greater yellowlegs, and 4 lesser yellowlegs. The water level was about the same as my last visit there on 8/22, with just a little bit of mudflats showing. We did get
rain in NE Ohio this week, so I wasn't surprised that the water hadn't gone down any more. Craig Holt, Lowellville
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