Avids Follow Well-trodden Paths
by Bill Whan

Collectively less than satisfied with the spring’s birding thus far, the Avid Birders spent much of 19 May’s trip in some of Ohio’s birding Meccas, in hopes that the meager migration, which continued skimpy even through the ballyhooed International Migratory Bird Day last weekend, might pick up a bit. Our usual numbers were much reduced by Big Days planned by some members, and trips in different directions by others; most of us were birding, but only eight showed up for this outing.

Buoyed by the first blue skies in a while, we headed north to Lake Erie, stopping first at some grasslands in Seneca County, where our spirits were lifted still higher by innumerable displaying bobolinks, singing meadowlarks and sparrows, and great looks at a short-eared owl. This area of CRP land, even though it has visibly shrunk recently, has been hosting at least one and probably several pairs of these owls, as well as a pair of northern harriers, last year and this.

Pipe Creek Wildlife Area continued to hold decent numbers of shorebirds and unusually numerous waterfowl, as well as marsh birds and terns. This area is usually a dull collection of flooded impoundments at this time of year, enlivened by a common tern colony, but we found eight species of shorebirds, three of terns, and 10 varieties of waterfowl. Steve spotted a least bittern in time for everyone to study it, and a distant willet was the select shorebird. We met a band of teenaged wanderers organized by Troy Shively, who told us they’d easily found the tricolored heron that was our next quarry.

After a brief stop at Medusa Marsh, where mute swans and hooded mergansers held sway, we found the observation tower at Pickerel Creek WA empty. We soon covered it with tripods, and were soon joined by a group from Indiana, wandering members of the Avids, and others. Eventually the heron was located, and we hung around for a while to complain about the small numbers of migrants everyone had been seeing. Some of the crowd had just come from the Magee bird trail, and talked like refugees from tedium—reports of only eight warbler species, silent woodlands, and empty beaches were close to unanimous.  But the weather was great, everyone agreed, and at least no one had missed any great finds made by others.

After an unforgettable experience with highway design gone badly astray in Fremont, we found a couple of hundred cars in the bird trail lot, and even the first of the summer crowds at Crane Creek SP barbecuing under the cottonwoods, where we went for lunch before hitting the trail. Once the boardwalk under the trees, we found precious few birds, many of them silent at 1 pm. We wondered where the folks who’d arrived in all those cars were. After we’d completed most of the loop, slowly and patiently combing the trees, the brush, the ground, the skies, for birds, we realized where those folks were; they were exiting the far end of the trail and driving off in search of better birding. When we emerged around 3 pm, the parking lot seemed nearly empty.

We’d picked up a bird here, a bird there, but most agreed it was the worst May birding at this renowned migrant trap we’d seen in decades. We ran into six of our usual companions, out on a Big—or, to judge by their refusal to talk about their numbers—at least a Medium Day. A chestnut-sided warbler was found, and within minutes twenty bird-starved visitors had gathered to give it a squint. A snoozing screech-owl seemed to satisfy some birders, at least those who were puzzling over their Petersons and wondering if they’d gotten a glimpse of an acorn woodpecker. Our day was growing short, and indeed we made short work of subsequent stops: the reeking drive into Ottawa with its long-dead carp, the mostly-empty trees at the end of Metzger Marsh (where new participant Lis finally memorialized on her tape recorder having finally gotten a decent look at a warbler), and another fruitless drive past the upland sandpiper nest site near Krause Road.

Finally getting the point, we packed it in, but as we came past the last big curve on Rte 2 we saw ten or fifteen cars parked haphazardly along the highway, crowds of people, scopes out, all pointed north into a corn field. Birders were sprinting across the highway, honked at by semis, frantically unlimbering their tripods. Others pointed excitedly into the stubble. We reacted instantly, and pulled off onto the berm, following the others, our imaginations working on the possibilities—a scissor-tailed flycatcher, a curlew, maybe a grounded ferruginous hawk?  When we joined the group, there were a lot of less-focused people, a few grumpy weary faces. Somewhere out there, we soon learned, someone had found the upland sandpipers that had been there for nearly two months, and they were so far away that most couldn’t even find them, and if they’d found them, couldn’t see them well at all.  A couple of us got a glimpse, the rest sharing the general disappointment, but at least we got away before the State Police showed up a few minutes later.