On Monday, November 30, Randy Rowe and I headed up to Lake Erie to see what we could find along the shores of the big lake. We first stopped at Wellington Reservoir, a well-known stop-over for migrating waterfowl. There were hundreds of Ruddy Ducks plus a nice assortment of Bufflehead, Ring-necked, Redhead, Hooded Mergansers and Pied-billed Grebes. Randy located one lone male Canvasback far out on the reservoir.
We picked out a beautiful Greater White-fronted Goose that was swimming among a flock of Canada Geese. This bird had been reported by a number of other birders during the previous week.
From Wellington we worked our way north to Rocky River Park, a well-known spot to observe birds on Lake Erie. All three species of scoters have been seen there at times. On this particular day there were two Surf Scoters floating and preening not too far from shore. As we feared, the fact that the day was turning out to be quite nice with wind from the south, meant that most birds were far out on the lake
Moving on west we stopped at several other spots that overlook Lake Erie but it wasn't until we checked out Avon Lake that we found another unusual bird.
An adult Lesser Black-backed Gull was easy to pick out among the many Ring-billed and Herring Gulls. Several Greater Black-backed Gulls were in the same area allowing for a nice comparison of the two species. There were also at least 30 or more Common Loons and many Horned Grebes offshore. We searched in vain for the Pacific Loon that one of our local birders had found there on Saturday.
At the harbor in Lorain we joined birders from Columbus in a search for the Black-headed Gull that had been seen by others over the weekend. The Columbus birders had already been there for four hours so we weren't surprised that we didn't see the rare gull in the 30 minutes we spent there. There were 1,000 or more Bonaparte's Gulls in the harbor and along the river. Back at home the next day I noticed on the internet that the Black-headed Gull was again located at Lorain on Tuesday.
Our last stop of the day was at the harbor in Huron. This has always been one of my favorite places along Lake Erie. Birders (and fisherman) walk along the break-wall to the lighthouse where the view of the lake is excellent. On this day there were not many birds to be found out on the lake, however the beach was filled with Ring-billed Gulls. They made quite an impressive sight to say the least.
Now that it is December, thoughts turn to Christmas Bird Counts, with the first one to be held on Tuesday, December 14 at Millersburg. For more information or to join that count, please contact me. Good Birding.
Bruce Glick - birderbruce@yahoo.com 330-317-7798
