I took a drive into Ashtabula Harbor hoping to see what was around before
the cold weather hits and freezes things up.  Conneaut Harbor had a few
ducks and gulls  with some variety.  The interesting birds here were a pair
of dunlin.  The mudflat is now gated off so I was scoping birds on the flats
from across the harbor.  I could see a couple shorebirds running around in
the gull flock.  From The distance I could not make them out, so I walked
out to the flat.  I had higher hopes, but they ended up being a pair of
dunlin, still not bad for January.  There was also a few great black-backs
and one adult lesser black-backed gull.  Waterfowl present were 3
pied-billed grebes, Canada geese, mallard, redhead, greater and lesser
scaup, bufflehead, and all three species of mergansers.  There was a flock
of 45 snow buntings on the beach west of the flats.



Ashtabula Harbor had almost no waterfowl.  All that I saw were Canada geese
and a few mallards.  There were also a pair of cormorants.  I had a few
great black-backed gulls, but that was it for gull variety.  There were a
lot of ring-billed and a few herring gulls.  I saw no Bonaparte's anywhere
today.



Just west of Ashtabula I had a black vulture moving east along the
lakeshore.  It was being harassed by a couple crows.



Geneva State Park had no waterfowl and only great black-backed, herring, and
ring-billed gulls.  Of note there was a belted kingfisher and a red-headed
woodpecker east of the marina.



I was surprised at the lack of waterfowl everywhere I checked.  Conneaut had
a few and I saw a couple small red-breasted merganser flocks here and there.



John Pogacnik

4765 Lockwood Road

Perry, OH 44081




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