MAGEE MARSH: Raw and Wonderful

What a difference a day can make. Though the unseasonably cool weather and overcast skies continued, it was raw, barely reaching 50 degrees, the winds had died down and all we got in the way of precipitation was misty conditions for half the morning.

The extensive car park at Magee Marsh was full of cars. The boardwalk was crawling with birders with bins eager to make up for yesterdays miserable conditions. The photographers were out in full force. The stage was set. The audience were in place, and the birds…… were towards the tops of the trees! The light wind meant that some had moved across Lake Erie overnight while others took full advantage of being able to feed at a higher level than was possible yesterday. It now meant we had to work to see the birds. But that I mean, we now had to lift our binoculars up to get a really decent view! While there was probably about as many birds around as the day before, the difference was that they were far more active, many were singing and as I mentioned, a great deal of the activity was found in the canopy. That said, there was still a tremendous diversity, in particular of warblers, vireos and thrushes, as I walked the length of the boardwalk and back.

I started with a Wood Thrush, Tufted Titmouse, Ruby-crowned Kinglet and Bay-breasted Warbler, followed by Cape May, a slightly more cooperative Black-billed Cuckoo, Black-throated Greens, and Yellow-rumps, along with many Yellows. Gray-cheeked and Swainson’s Thrush showed themselves today, as did a better look at a female Wilson’s Warbler. Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Nashville, Chestnut-sided and Northern Waterthrush soon were located.

A Swamp Sparrow was also in this wet open wooded area but our attention was quickly drawn to the close calling Prothonotary (above). It turned out there was a pair that had already selected a nest cavity in a broken tree stump. The male was kept busy between being chased by a Red-winged Blackbird, collecting moss to add as nesting material, and, courting his mate. Nearer to the eastern end of the boardwalk, American Redstart, Northern Ovenbird, Lincoln Sparrow, a Willow and several Least Flycatchers were all seen.

A large crowd had gathered along the car park near the western entrance where migrants that panicked when they saw the lake in front of them at dawn, decided it would be better to spend one more day in the woods of the United States, before heading into Canada. This was to our benefit! How can anyone possible not stop to view not one, but three brilliant Blackburnian’s? Though a few people did walk past them, for whatever reason, most of us were eager to study what is arguably our most stunning warbler (above). A male Pine Warbler, as well as three Blue-headed and a Yellow-throated Vireo also worked this section of the edge of the woods.

While I was enjoying Magee, Ann’s trip took her an hour west of BSBO to Oak Openings. This sandy 5-mile wide swathe of sparsely wooded dunes and ridges is “One of America’s Last Great Places” as the Nature Conservancy calls it. The endangered Cerulean Warbler was one of the key birds of the outing, and no sooner had the bus pulled into the visitor center parking lot, one was heard singing and spotted on top of the oaks. There is also an isolated population of Lark Sparrows that have been breeding in the dry prairies and sparse sandy barrens – considerably further east than their normal range in the prairies west of the Mississippi – and several birds were easily seen.

Our afternoon excursions began at Ottawa NWR, a 9000-acre refuge that protects Lake Eries marsh and estuarine habitat along with some of the last remnants of Great Black Swamp. Though there are a multitude of trails on the dikes we opted to take the short drive along the entrance road to the impoundments (above). The water level was slightly lower today which exposed a larger surface of mudflats, though that probably did not have much effect as we only had a handful of shorebirds, Dunlin, Solitary and Least Sandpiper.

A few Great Blue Herons, including one catching a fish (above), joined well over over 50 Great Egrets in the only impoundment we visited. It was here that we saw a Trumpeter Swan on a nest.

The trail behind the visitors center led us through a beautiful swampy woodland (above) where we encountered Swainson’s, Gray-cheeked and Wood Thrushes, and of course, Veery’s.  

Two Great Horned Owl (above) young that had branched out were roosting on a thick horizontal branch high up in a maple and Eastern Bluebirds had found a home in a nest box near the boardwalk.

Adjacent to Ottawa NWR is the 550-acre Metzger Marsh Wildlife Area. For over an hour we worked the small one acre wood-lot that surrounds a cattail marsh at the northern end of the route. An Ovenbird was walking along the narrow trail between the marsh and the cattails. Amongst the cattails an Eastern Phoebe and a Least Flycatcher hawked for insects, while American Redstart, Black-throated Blue (above), Northern Parula and Tennessee were foraging in the deciduous trees. Our efforts to find a Canada Warbler today were finally rewarded with brief, though great looks at a stunning male. That was a fitting end to our wonderful day and bought our total of warblers to 25 for the day!