I took a drive into Ashtabula county to enjoy the weather and see what was around.  I started at Conneaut and immediately found an adult little gull that was flying at the mouth of the creek with a number of Bonaparte's gulls.  The bird never got any closer than that.  when i was at the mud flats someone let me know about that there were three brant at the east end of the flat.  the three birds were all immatures.  they were very tame and only moved out when people were walking there dogs, off leash.  there were quite a few gulls in the harbor, but not much variety.  I also had 6 long-billed dowitchers fly by.  the only other shorebirds were a few flyby dunlin.  None of the shorebirds landed.  waterfowl variety was low with just brant, Canada goose, gadwall, mallard, ring-necked duck, common merganser, and red-breasted merganser.


Ashtabula Harbor had more waterfowl flying by, with most being red-breasted mergansers.  I also added 5 surf scoters and 17 black scoters at Lakeshore Park and a lesser black-backed gull at the same location.  There were a few shorebirds at Walnut Beach I had a killdeer, 7 dunlin, and a Wislon's snipe.  I had a brief moment of excitement when I spotted a distant swallow.  It ended up being a late rough-winged swallow.  Not huge numbers, but a nice day none the less.


John Pogacnik

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