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December
4, 2004
Avids’ Purple Haze Fails
to Clear
by Bill Whan
The purple
sandpiper Calidris
maritima is
not often
seen in Ohio. As its scientific
name suggests it prefers seacoasts, and in Ohio
appears almost exclusively on the shore of our inland sea, Lake Erie.
It nests in the remote Arctic, and only small
portions
of its populations winter as far south as our latitude; the most
cold-loving of
the shorebirds, some purple sandpipers actually spend the winter north
of the Arctic Circle.
This plump,
dark, white-bellied bird, with a medium-long slightly downcurved bill
from
which an icicle can occasionally be seen hanging, is seldom seen far
from rocky
shores, where it forages expertly among slippery wet stones, waves
sloshing
rhythmically about its yellowish legs. Nearly all the rocky shoreline
habitats
on our shore
of Lake Erie are of human
fabrication: armored
shorelines, breakwalls, jetties, pier foundations, and the like. Purple
sandpipers are almost never found in spring in the state, and in fall
migration
show up later than any other shorebird, arriving normally in
November.
They can seem very tame, often allowing a
close approach.
So
we knew
exactly what habitat to search, and there isn’t all that much of it. We
knew
the bird’s habits, and its customary schedule. We knew it was tolerant
of
observers. Best of all, we knew four of them had recently been reported
by a
number of birders at the Mentor
headlands lighthouse, an established hot spot for the species. It
seemed like a
natural thematic species for our 4 December adventure, and we scheduled
in a
stop at the lighthouse first thing, to get our day’s accomplishments
off on the
good foot.
As I
frequently take the occasion to observe, the dates for our
quasi-monthly
outings are chosen from stores of accumulated wisdom, hard-won
experience,
lengthy discussions and consultation of learned references, as well as
by an
antique Ouija board, so when some appointed days arrive we wonder how
the heck
we could have chosen them. When we arrived at the headlands, the sun
was bright,
the temperatures climbing past freezing, and only a few unruly gusts
foreshadowed the gale-force winds to come. These winds were
southwesterly
however, a direction from which even the most hopeful birder could
hardly
expect birds arriving from Baffin Island. As it turned
out, at the headlands and half a dozen spots along the lake shore, we
were to
stare daylong in vain at wavelets drooling along rows of wet black
stones that
gaped like the stained stumps of giants’ teeth in the harbors. We did
get
killer looks at small groups of snow buntings as they somehow found
tiny seeds
in the sand. Otherwise, beyond hordes of passing red-breasted
mergansers we had
four species of gulls.
Fairport
Harbor was next. Other than
red-breasted
mergansers, a couple of other duck species graced the harbor in small
numbers,
and four species of gulls were found. We diligently searched huge
milling
flocks of Bonaparte’s gulls for the interesting rarities that
sometimes,
somewhere, for some observers, are known to accompany them, with no
success.
Eastlake’s
power plant followed. Here we found
enormous rafts of red-breasted mergansers, which we scanned a bit
giddily for
lurking jaegers, and little else in the way of waterfowl. A few gulls
were
around, and one hunkered down so ambiguously that for more than a few
minutes
we thought it might be a lesser black-backed, but in the end only four
species
were found.
East 72nd
Street in Cleveland,
another spot with an attractive hot water outflow, came up next as we
traveled
west. We picked up a single ruddy duck and a lone lesser scaup in the
marina,
but mostly red-breasted mergansers. The breakwalls were bereft of
purple
sandpipers, or much else for that matter. The inner sanctum of the pool
of hot
water had a few gulls, four species of them this time, and a very
healthy
collection of Mergus serrator that brought the
day’s count into five
figures.
We
took Marginal
Road west into downtown,
mainly for a chance to
find a snowy owl at the lakefront airport, a chance our increasingly
dim
fortunes denied us. Edgewater
Park
looked pretty empty except for some offshore mergansers too distant to
stop to
admire further. We’d run into lots of local birders, who mostly advised
us to
try birding elsewhere, but we had heard that couple of scoters remained
at
Bradstreet Landing in Rocky River, where we stopped next. Other than
scattered
flocks of red-breasted mergansers (we’d ceased counting, so don’t ask),
the
vast expanse of surprisingly unruffled water seemed empty, but at last,
straining our zoom lenses to the sticking-point, we discerned two black
dots in
the distance, most of a mile to the west, which prolonged scrutiny
proved to be
a surf scoter and a black scoter. A loon was briefly seen, raising
hopes. Few
gulls were present, and only four species of them, which saved us
another
arduous session of holding scopes steady while we scanned the same old
throngs.
We
decided
to abandon Lake Erie, and backtracked to Lakewood
Cemetery, where birds like
siskins
and redpolls beckoned, at least in our fevered imaginations. The birch
trees
and other food sources were birdless there, and the presence of an
actual
funeral made our disappointment feel a bit trivial, but we did stop at
the
traditional spot where a gray-morph screech-owl can almost always be
found.
Except this day.
A
freeway
dash and a big change of scene brought us to Oberlin Reservoir, where
from a
mile away we could see large clouds of wheeling gulls churning above.
There
were thousands on the reservoir too, two species of them, floating face
into
the wind. Behind them, in the very farthest corners of the water,
backlit by
fitful sun, were ducks—ruddies mostly, usually the most numerous duck
at this
time and place.
Wellington
Reservoir is only a short distance down the road, and this time of year
always
has big flocks of waterfowl, so after a sixth bathroom stop we hurried
there,
stopping for five minutes of attempts to transmogrify a big Cooper’s
hawk into
a goshawk. The emerging sun was behind us here, and the wind quieted
down.
Rafts of sleek and colorful ducks gleamed on the water, a bit far out
but easy
to study with scopes. Although we found no red-breasted mergansers
among them,
a variety of ducks were diving, dabbling, scooting about and courting
lasciviously, and we gladly squandered what remained of our time
studying
them. Any port in a storm, we figured.
Our
official list has for some time been withheld in order to maintain
morale, but
can be revealed at this time. A blustery day kept down our count of
perching
birds. Our gull count totaled but four species. Our most numerous
species was
the red-breasted merganser. The last 45 minutes at Wellington,
one-dimensional as it was, increased the day’s count by a fairly
embarrassing
20%. Here is the list of the 48:
Canada
goose
Mute swan
Gadwall
American wigeon
American black duck
Mallard
Blue-winged teal
Canvasback
Redhead
Ring-necked duck
Greater scaup
Lesser scaup
Surf scoter
Black scoter
Bufflehead
Hooded merganser
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Common
merganser
Red-breasted merganser
Ruddy duck
Common loon
Pied-billed grebe
Double-crested cormorant
Great blue heron
Bald eagle
Cooper’s hawk
Red-tailed hawk
Rough-legged hawk
American kestrel
American coot
Bonaparte’s gull
Ring-billed gull
Herring gull
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Great
black-backed gull
Rock pigeon
Mourning dove
Blue jay
American crow
Black-capped chickadee
White-breasted nuthatch
Carolina wren
European starling
American tree sparrow
Dark-eyed junco
Snow bunting
Northern cardinal
Common grackle
American goldfinch
House sparrow
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Page
updated 04/04/05
©
Columbus Audubon 2005
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