May 16, 17, 18, 2019....Lake Erie...Howard MetroPark, Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, Magee Marsh

Tom and I spent three days at Lake Erie birding in some of the parks along the coast.  Howard MetroPark has been open since last year.  It is part of the Toledo MetroPark system.  The park personal are in the process of turning the Howard farm back to its natural marshy state.  Already, the birds have found it.

Tom and I have seen Horned Larks in the past but we have never seen one as close as this one.  For a while it perched on a big rock and sang its beautiful song.

Later, it, or another one, sat on the gravel beside the van as we ate our lunch.  We looked at it and it looked at us.

We got really good looks at its tiny "horns".  

Another bird we rarely see up close is this Caspian Tern.  Usually we see them flying.

We saw lots of Trumpeter Swans. Trumpeter Swans are one of the successful Conservation projects  in this area. For many years there were none in the area.

Tom is good at spotting Snowy Egrets. If you click on it, you can see the red between its bill and eye which only appears in breeding season.

This Great Egret has the distinctive green patch between its eye and bill. The patch and fluffy feathers tell us it is in breeding plumage. This one has wet "fluffy' feathers so they are stringy, not fluffy.

The bird I was elated to see was this Yellow-headed Blackbird.  They nest in the area but they are not often seen.  The last one I saw was years ago at Cheyenne Bottoms in Kansas.  Tom had to take this picture through the front window so it is not as clear as it might be.  The situation was beyond Tom's control.

Our next stop was Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge.

One of the most noticeable birds was the Eastern Kingbird.  Tom took some photos that showed the entire bird better but this one shows the identifying white band across its tail best.

We drove the Ottawa dike drive on Thursday and again on Friday.  On both days we saw many Eastern Kingbirds and also large numbers of Trumpeter Swans and Great Egrets.  We heard Yellow Warblers all along the drive and toward the end of the drive we came across this one in its nest.

The boardwalk at Magee Marsh is the place to see a big variety of warblers.  Sometimes the warblers are close to the railing.  Other times they are further away.

Sometimes they are high in the trees.

Below are portraits of some that were close enough to see without binoculars.

Bay-breasted Warbler (male)

Chestnut-sided Warbler (male)

Magnolia Warbler (male)

At all three locations , we saw families of Canada Geese.

Trip to Lake Erie, Monday, March 12, 2018

All of the photos in this blog were taken by Tom, either on Monday or on other trips we've taken to Lake Erie.

The day was overcast when we started out and never improved.  Before we left Lake Erie we drove through mist and light rain.  As we headed home Tom drove through two nasty snow squalls.  fortunately, neither one lasted long.  Nevertheless, we had a good birding day.  Ducks aren't bothered by the weather and we birded from the van.

At Magee Marsh we were pleased to see that at least one eagle pair had returned to their nest of previous years.  One eagle was on the nest.  The other was nearby.

Tom offered to drop me off at the boardwalk.  He said he would read if I wanted to walk.  I told him, "No."  There was a mist falling and the temperature was 31 degrees.

There were ducks along the causeway and the red-winged blackbirds were back. 

Northern Shoveler

Red-winged Blackbird


There were ducks at Metzger, too.  We were pleased to see a few Northern Pintails.  We don't see them every year.  Usually we are too late.

Tom decided he would like to go to East Harbor which is about a half hour to the east.  We never have gone to the state park because we didn't want to waste time driving when we could be birding.  however, Tom has been following the Ohio bird sightings on EBird and he said there had been a lot of birds sighted there.

This is what we saw...birds from one shore to the other.  We will go back to East Harbor again.

The Saga of the Power Chair Lift

Some of you may remember that I mentioned that it was unusual for us to be at Magee Marsh late enough to see a sunset.

There was a reason we saw this sunset.  We were all set to head back to our motel after finding Kentucky Fried Chicken to bring back with us.  Tom was in the van.  I put the chair on the lift, pushed the button,  and then this happened.

Nothing!  For some reason, at the time I was more interested in the situation than in taking photos so I took the them yesterday.  You will have to imagine...an enormous parking lot, filled with vehicles from all over the United States, gravelly outer edges (like where we were parked).  We are facing the woods that the boardwalk is built through.  On the other side of the parking lot is a wild grassy sandy area that was once a sunbathing beach and beyond that is Lake Erie.  The sun is low in the sky and little black flies are beginning to bite.

The first step is to take the power chair off the lift.  Next...try the toggle switch again...jiggle the lift left and right...not much movement...  I try pushing the manual restart buttons. (The problem has happened before so I have learned about the buttons.) No reaction.

Tom helps me get out the tools we have in the van.

Among them is a diagram and instructions.  Not any help to us.

Finally, Tom calls the lift retailer, Cecil, at his home.  He is two and a half hours away.  He tells us to push the button behind the arm but to use a screwdriver so I don't lose a finger when the lift suddenly starts working.

No problem following instructions.  No problem worrying about my finger.  Nothing happened.

Finally Cecil starts searching on his computer and gives us the 800 number of the lift's manufacturer.  Tom starts to work...after phone calls and referrals, he connects with a dealer in the Toledo area which is less than an hour away.

Remember it is late in the day, afterhours for the business.  The on-call technician isn't in Ohio.  He is visiting in Michigan.  He really doesn't want to make a trip.  It is nearly dark and he has never heard of Magee Marsh.  He doesn't know where it is.

He keeps telling us to press the white button.  There is no white button, only a black button.  After a lot of negotiation, he agrees to come but it will cost us two hundred dollars, the afterhour charge...and it will take him about two hours to get to us.

 During the discussion, he learns that Magee Marsh is what was once Crane Creek State Park.  He remembers going there when he was a teenager so he knows where it is.  We learn that he is just over the Ohio-Michigan line so two hours is an exaggeration.

We can't close the back end of the van...the lift is out and not moving.  The biting flies are happy. Then we remember we have insect repellent in the van.

We wait.  More birders leave.

The technician comes a little over an hour after the last phone call.  He was right. The fix took only fifteen minutes.

We find our Kentucky Fried Chicken and our motel room.

The next day the lift operates perfectly.

Our local lift technician replaces the motor.  This photo was taken from inside the van.  The platform the power chair sits on is behind the arrow...the thing with the row of holes.

Hooray!

But the problem is obviously something else we learn  a month later when we have the same problem again.

This time we are only an hour and a half from home and Cecil talks a mechanically savvy friend through the repair process as I watch and help where I can.

Once we are back home, our local technician goes over the lift carefully.  The lift still isn't working so he installs a loaner lift and promises to check everything over and to talk to the manufacturer again.

We come back.  This time the technician  replaces the rollers the lift rolls back on.  He and the manufacturer cannot come up with any other possibility.

The next day we learn the lift is still not fixed BUT I can get the lift in if I jiggle it and give it a little push.

Never one to give up, Tom decides to try a repair shop in Cincinnati.  This technician has worked with lifts for ten years.  After one and a half hours he FINDS THE CULPRIT!  The wire connecting the lift and the motor is corroded under its plastic coating.

Isn't technology wonderful!!

We haven't had any more trouble.  We're feeling confident.  We may start taking longer trips again.

Magee Marsh, May 17 and 18, 2017

This was our fourth trip to Magee Marsh this spring.  Each time the marsh was different and the birds varied though we saw Red-winged Blackbirds all three times.

Male Red-winged blackbirds are a common Ohio bird in the Spring and Summer.  They are a delight.  The females look a little like a large sparrow, striped in tans, and browns with a little white mixed in.

The males often perch in the open and sing with enthusiasm.  One little girl told me she thought it was singing, "Oh come to meee.  Oh,come to meee.".

Tom took this picture when the bird landed on the rope closing off the area where a pair of Bald Eagles are raising two offspring.

We came a bit late in May because it was after the official Greatest Week in American Birding so the area was less crowded.  Pictures were harder to take because the trees were leafed out.  Three weeks ago, the leaves were only beginning to open.

Late spring is when the American Redstarts are migrating through.  Some remain in the area and nest.  We saw both males and females.  The two pictures below are of males.  The females have yellow feathers where the males have red-orange.

Below are some of the other birds that we saw.  Tom took all of the bird photos.

Male Blackburnian Warbler.

Two views of the Male Magnolia Warbler

Two views of the Male Chestnut-sided Warbler

Male Prothonotary Warbler

Female Black-throated Blue Warbler

The female warblers are generally drabber than the males.  The female Black-throated Blues have a rectangular "pocket handkerchief" on their wing just as the more colorful males do so I recognize them more easily than I do some of the other females.

Male Baltimore Oriole

Other birds besides the warblers come to stay for the summer at Magee Marsh or stop on their migration route to the north.  The oriole is one of them.  We stood for five minutes and watched this one glean caterpillars from the tree.

We had a bit of an adventure as we were leaving on the 17th.  As a result we left later than we usually do.  Tom stopped on the drive out so I could snap this photo with his camera.

Trumpeter Swans Everywhere, A Vist to Lake Erie Shore to Bird Watch...March 19, 2017

Tom and I made a day trip to the Black Swamp area of Ohio on Sunday, March 19. Magee Marsh Wildlife Area, Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge and Metzger Marsh are part of the remaining Black Swamp which once covered thousands of acres. Most of it has been drained and is now used for farming. 

Photo by Tom Persing

We expected to see a variety of ducks.  We did. Tom counted sixteen species of ducks.  We could see them through our binoculars and spotting scope but only a few were close enough to photograph like these male Northern Shovelers (Anas clypeata).

Photo by Tom Persing

What we did see in abundance were Trumpeter Swans (Cygnus buccinator).  They are the United States's biggest native waterfowl.

Three photos of Swans by Tom Persing

In 1935, the total number of known individual Trumpeter Swans was 69.  They had been  hunted nearly to extinction for meat, skins, and feathers.  There were none breeding in Ohio until they were reintroduced in 1996.  Trumpeter Swans are still listed as Threatened in Ohio.

Trumpeter Swans have been a classic conservation success story although they are still listed as Threatened in Ohio. According to an article from the Cornell Lab of  Ornithology..."between 2000 and 2005 a continentwide survey found that Trumpeter Swan numbers had more than tripled, from 11,156 to 34,803."

The swans breed on wetlands in Alaska, Canada and the northwestern United States.  Most of the swans we saw are on their way to Canada.  We hope a few stay to breed in Ohio.

Great Day at Magee Marsh, May 15, 2016

Tom and I decided to take a day trip to Lake Erie and do some birding at Magee Marsh, Metzgar Marsh and Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. Migrating warblers and other birds stop at all three places before starting the next leg of their journey across Lake Erie to nesting grounds in Canada and the far north.

We invited a friend who is a beginning birder to come with us.  This was his first time to walk the Magee Marsh boardwalk.  It was a perfect day, a Fall-out Day.  There was a wind in the upper trees which drove the birds down.  We saw many of them within a couple feet of us at eye level.  To make the day even better, the temperature was in the sixties. (Fahrenheit)

When we arrived at the boardwalk, we were hungry so we had a picnic lunch before starting out on the boardwalk.

The birds were flitting about in the branches in front of the van.  I laid out lunch.  Tom and our friend birded. One of the first warblers that checked us out was a Northern Parula.  Our friend had seen the bird earlier in the week while on the Miami County Bike Trail but could not positively identify it.  He had no doubt this time.

"It's the bird I saw on the bike trail."

Northern Parula

We also saw a Baltimore Oriole during our lunch.

Baltimore Oriole

We were birding one day after the end of the Biggest Week in American Birding so there were still quite a few people on the boardwalk.

In the parking lot we saw cars and vans from all over the country as well as a few from Canada.

My favorite sighting was a Black-throated Blue warbler.  Tom was off down the boardwalk making his own discoveries.  John and I watched it with delight.  Better than seeing the bird was sharing it with someone who was seeing it for the first time.  Even though I have seen the bird beforeI didn't know that the blue feathers on its back are iridescent.  This time he was so close it was easy to see his shining feathers.

Black-throated Blue

Other warblers that we saw...

Black-throated Green

Cape May

Bay-Breasted

Blackburnian

Blackpoll

Chestnut-sided

Magnolia

American Redstart