May is indeed a wonderful month for birders
- Bruce Glick: Gone Birding
- May 21, 2018
- 1742
This has been an excellent spring migration. Thunderstorms seemed to keep the warblers and other passerine migrants around our part of the world longer than usual. Some years we have day after day of south winds and warm weather, which allows the birds to fly north with only brief stops along the way.
There have been some rare birds showing up in Ohio and Indiana. A curlew sandpiper was seen in Ohio last week. After the recent black-throated gray warbler show in Holmes County, it was interesting to see that another of these western birds was seen at least briefly at Magee Marsh on May 14. My friend Gary and I drove over to the boardwalk at Magee on the 15th, where we found lots of birds everywhere we went.
Even though the advertised biggest birding week was over, the parking lot and boardwalk at Magee Marsh were crowded. The three locations where mourning warblers were seen were so packed with people that it wasn’t possible to see the birds. Someone would say, “It just moved to the right on the other side of the big log.” The crowd would shift in that direction.
Gary and I worked our way past the crowds and enjoyed seeing all the expected warblers, most of them in good numbers and close enough to watch. There seemed to be many of the following warblers: Cape May, American redstart, blackpoll, black-and-white, bay-breasted, chestnut-sided, Tennessee, Canada, Wilson’s, black-throated green, black-throated blue, northern parula, yellow, common yellowthroat, blackburnian and magnolia.
Northern waterthrushes called from the wooded marsh, and nesting prothonotary warblers seemed to be especially common this year. There were even a few late yellow-rumped warblers among the crowds.
We saw both yellow-billed and black-billed cuckoos, an American woodcock, and a cooperative eastern screech-owl. Out at the parking lot, several birders were pointing out a common nighthawk, roosting on a branch high overhead. I enjoyed seeing two yellow-bellied flycatchers, new for the year. And it also was good to watch a Lincoln’s sparrow working its way through the undergrowth very close to the boardwalk.
After leaving the boardwalk, we headed over to Ottawa National Wildlife Area, less than a mile to the west. I had never been on the wildlife drive, a long driving route through the wildlife area that is open to the public at times. This year it is open until May 20 and then only on certain days.
A black-necked stilt had been reported along the route, but we didn’t see it. Much of shorebird habitat was flooded from the recent heavy rains. We were looking for the neotropic cormorant that has been seen off and on over the last week or so. Although we only saw double-crested cormorants, it was easy to see how one could miss a single bird in such a huge area of wetlands.
Here in the Goshen area we had a nice surprise when a birder found a Kirtland’s warbler at Bonneville Mills County Park. It was seen by several other birders. We arrived a few minutes after the latest sighting and heard the bird sing but never could see it in the dense, brushy area. As is often the case, it was not heard or seen again, having undoubtedly continued on its flight to Michigan for the summer.
Good birding!
Reach Bruce Glick at birderbruce@yahoo.com or 330-317-7798.