Catching up on some excellent birding
- Bruce Glick: Gone Birding
- May 30, 2018
- 1557
The white-tailed kite that I wrote about last week was still being seen in Northern Indiana as of May 25.
Some very good big days took place this spring including the best Ohio big day in many, many years. A local team, almost the same birders as last year when they reached 180 species, had a big day for the ages on Monday, May 14. Originally scheduled for the 12th, the team decided to wait, based on weather predictions. As it turned out, they hit one of the best migration days ever.
Kent Miller, James E. Yoder, Tim Hochstetler and Eli Miller started out the big day at midnight. This year they reversed the route, starting in Coshocton County, listening for night-time birds including owls and migrants.
From there the team drove to Killbuck Marsh and Funk and then to Mohican State Park to get all the specialties there. Road construction at Mohican kept them from the gorge overlook, and the team missed hermit thrush, one of the few misses of the day. Then it was on to Clear Fork Reservoir and then to Magee Marsh for the birds at the boardwalk. They were fortunate to see the black-throated gray warbler that was the bird of the day for many people.
The evening was spent at the Lake Erie marshes, where they found a number of new water birds for the day. When all was tallied up, they had an amazing total of 199 species. Kent, who did all the driving, eventually got home sometime Tuesday morning. It may be a long time before conditions are good enough for a shot at 200. Actually, if trumpeter swan was countable in Ohio, they would have had 200.
Here in Northern Indiana, I made four trips to the Pigeon River Fish and Wildlife Area in the last week. New birds for the year included least bittern, blue grosbeak, alder flycatcher, Brewer’s blackbird, lark sparrow and a number of shorebirds. We finally had a good shorebird spot, thanks to the heavy rain that flooded a lot of fields. Ruddy turnstone, dunlins, black-bellied plovers, white-rumped sandpipers and a cooperative stilt sandpiper kept us coming back.
One evening I received a call from a young birder who had located a marbled godwit, not far from where we had been seeing all the shorebirds. Gary Keister and I hurried out there, only to find that the bird was gone and darkness was setting in. Ironically, after nobody found the godwit the next morning, a different birder relocated it at 6 p.m. We again drove out there, where we were joined by eight other birders, but this time the godwit evidently really had left the area.
At least three king rails have been found this spring at the Killbuck Marsh and Funk Bottoms Wildlife Areas. Also in the Bobolink Area, several common loons and a black tern have recently been reported. In the Goshen, Indiana vicinity, birders are chasing down the last birds for the three-month spring contest.
It’s been a good year for teams with the leaders finding well over 230 species. Each bird must actually be seen by two team members in order to count for the contest. Getting a Connecticut warbler to show itself to a pair of birders is always a matter of skill and luck.
It’s now officially nesting season. Good birding!
Reach Bruce Glick at birderbruce@yahoo.com or 330-317-7798.