Saturday, May 20, 2017

Magee Marsh, Northern Ohio, May 15-19, 2017




I made my fifth spring pilgrimage to Magee Marsh, in search of migrant songbirds in close quarters. For those who have not visited, Magee Marsh offers a mile-long boardwalk through a small patch of shoreline woods just south of Lake Erie, which might be the most heavily-birded single site on earth.


This patch of woods is a migrant trap, and in mid- and late May, attracts numbers of wood warblers, vireos, flycatchers, and other landbirds that decide to spend some time in this woodland patch rather than making the daunting flight across the great lake. Just to the north, on the Ontario side of the lake, is Point Pelee, which attracts those birds that decide to cross the lake at the very end of a night’s worth of flying. Point Pelee is another one of the great spring birding sites in the Northeast.


Magee Marsh is situated near Oak Harbor and Port Clinton, just east of Toledo and just west of Cleveland. It is a wonderful birding region because of the presence of a variety of protected areas: Magee Marsh, Ontario National Wildlife Refuge, Metzger Marsh, Oak Openings, Toussaint Wildlife Area, and more. In the late spring, the area attracts many migrant birds—shorebirds, waterfowl, plus the various landbirds.


This year, I tent-camped at the large campground at Maumee Bay State Park. This sizeable park has good birding as well, and also features a lodge where birders can stay. The state park is about 20 minutes’ west of Magee Marsh, just on the outskirts of Toledo. I had a bicycle with me, and the miles of flat bike paths and open park roads make for great bicycle-birding with this park.


Black Swamp Bird Observatory, which is based at Magee Marsh, is operated by Kimberly Kaufman and Kenn Kaufman. During their annual birding festival, entitled “the Biggest Week in American Birding” thousands of birders from around the country flock to Magee. At that time, the boardwalk gets very crowded. The fun side of the crowds is that one always meets birding friends as well as makes new friends. This annual birding festival is hosted at the Lodge at Maumee Bay State Park. I arrived in the area just after the close of this year’s festival.


For those who prefer to bird in solitude, the Magee boardwalk venue is probably not the place for them (although there are plenty of productive nooks and crannies in the general vicinity to bird in peace). The benefit of birding on a crowded boardwalk is that there are a multitude of sharp eyes and keen ears picking out warblers and their songs. It is just a matter of asking what is being seen or heard. If there is a Mourning Warbler on the boardwalk, the news gets out quickly, and dozens and dozens of birders have the pleasure of watching that bird foraging in a thicket at close range. The boardwalk is all about proximity—extreme proximity. It is common to have to back up in order to get the bird into focus with one’s binoculars or camera.


A word of warning for those wanting to plan a trip to Magee Marsh. The boardwalk is only productive when the migrant birds are moving through in numbers. That is weather-dependent. It is best if southwest winds are blowing lightly but steadily, carrying birds from the deep south up to Lake Erie on their way to their breeding forests in Ontario.


In May, it is not uncommon for strong northwest winds to blow south across the Lake. During these times, the birds are few, and the birders are grumpy and bored. So, for those who have the flexibility, it is best to block out the period from 10-20 May on the calendar, and plan on locking in 3-4 mornings when the weather forecast is firmly predicting southwest winds. This can only be done a few days in advance, a problem for those who need to book plan tickets and take time off from work.


Kenn Kaufman’s birding blog at: http://cranecreekbirding.blogspot.com/ provides analysis of the weather and lets the reader know prospects for migrant arrivals. On a good day, it is not unusual to see Kenn and Kimberly leading birdwalks in and around Magee—they are the king and queen of Crane Creek birding.


This year, May was dominated by a long period with northerly winds. This pattern finally broke with the arrival of southerly winds from 16-18 May. The only problem was that the winds were way too strong. Winds exceeding 20 MPH blew for most of Wednesday and Thursday. The birds were present, but seeing and hearing them was made difficult by the noise and distraction caused by the strong winds in the tall canopy of the woodland strip.


The one good aspect of the strong winds was that they forced the foraging birds into the low shrubbery, where they could be watched below eye level. That’s not such a bad consequence.


During my stay, the diversity of wood warblers was not terribly high, probably because it was so late in the season (many of the early migrants had managed to pass through in spite of the poor weather conditions). I recorded 24 species of warblers in four mornings, getting 23 of those on my very first morning on the boardwalk.


The only additional species I added after day one was an obliging Connecticut Warbler that sang for more than 20 minutes and that walked about on the ground in a patch of thicket within 10-20 feet of the boardwalk. It was seen by virtually every observer with some patience. Mourning Warblers were present in numbers each day, some of them singing. Bay-breasted Warblers were common, but Cape May less so.


The most common warbler species during my visit (in order of abundance) were: Yellow (a local breeder), American Redstart, Magnolia Warbler, Chestnut-sided, and Prothonotary (another breeder).  
 Other interesting birds included several flycatcher species singing and visible: Olive-sided, Yellow-bellied, Alder, Least, Willow; Lincoln’s Sparrow; both cuckoos; and Swainson’s and Gray-cheeked Thrushes. Woodcock were also a daily occurrence, resting and foraging right adjacent to the boardwalk. A pair of Sandhill Cranes hung out in the marshland and bugled each morning to everyone’s delight. It is worth noting that there is a fairly large resident population of Trumpeter Swans in the vicinity. These have been re-introduced through much of the Great Lakes region over the last decade or so.


Just to give a sense of the warbler phenomenon, here are my 4-day totals for some of the more common species: Yellow 165, American Redstart 107, Magnolia 77, Chestnut-sided 70, Common Yellowthroat 32, Prothonotary 26, Bay-breasted 23, Northern Parula 23, Black-throated Green 22, Black-throated Blue 19, and Canada 17.

Happy birding!










Saturday, May 6, 2017

Moose Bog Revisited
Wenlock Wildlife Management Area, northern Vermont


On the 3-5th of May 2017 I birded the spruce-fir forests of Moose Bog, a place I had visited with Jared Keyes in June 2016. I re-visited a month earlier this year in order to have a better chance with Spruce Grouse, one of the elusive boreal species that can be found there.

The drive up from DC took 14 hours (with stops for three meals). I arrived at my campsite at 9:15 PM in the dark—and finding the campsite was made more difficult because its address was interpreted by my GPS as a location about 9 miles north of the place itself.


I camped at Big Rock campground in North Stratford, New Hampshire. Just across the Connecticut River from Vermont, Big Rock was the closest open campsite to Moose Bog this early in the season. It was about 9 miles southeast of the birding site. After Memorial Day it is possible to camp at Brighton State Park in Vermont, about 10 miles west of Moose Bog. Both are quite satisfactory places to camp.


Moose Bog is situated in the Nulhegan Basin, a big flat interior lowland surrounded by mountains. On a map, the Basin has the look of a ancient bolide impact site. This big flat frost pocket is filled with boreal forest of Black Spruce, Red Spruce, Balsam Fir, Northern White-cedar, White Birch, and Quaking Aspen. That is its great attraction. The lowest spots are very boggy, and these boggy areas are attractive to Moose and various north country birds. Much of the Basin is protected as Silvio Conte National Wildlife Refuge and two Vermont Wildlife Management Areas (Wenlock and West Mountain). Much of the Basin has been heavily logged, and there is not much old growth forest. Some of the very nicest is found along the Moose Bog trail—a flat walking track about 1.5 miles long on the north side of the bog and not far from route 105.



Early May in northernmost Vermont is the very end of winter. There was still snow hidden in small patches in the shadier spots, and none of the deciduous trees had leafed out. The Red Maples were popping their deep red buds, and the some of the Tamaracks were starting to push out tiny needles. The hillsides, mainly deciduous, gave off the faintest green haze in patches, where the trees were being encouraged by the weak sun.


A few Spring Peepers were singing in the bogs, and a few of the migrant songbirds were starting to arrive on territory: Myrtle Warbler, Palm Warbler, Northern Waterthrush, Hermit Thrush, the two kinglets. White-throated Sparrows were in song. Winter Wrens were giving their roller-coaster vocalization. A pair of Merlins made a lot of noise from some tall spruces where, I presume, they were putting up a nest.


Also the permanent resident species were in spring mode, in spite of the winter-like conditions. Black-backed Woodpeckers were drumming, as were Pileated Woodpeckers.


Moose tracks divotted the dirt roads. The single Moose I encountered was a sad-looking calf that appeared to be suffering from an infestation of ticks. The Moose in the area are not doing well, in part because of ticks.


I was there mainly to track down and photograph the Spruce Grouse. The males start displaying in late April when the snow is mainly gone. The males hang out in the interior spruce forest where the ground is covered in a mat of green moss. Individual males attract females with a display flight and also a noisy wing flipping. The display flights that I saw were simply quick transits from the ground up to a nearby branch. This wing sound is what alerted me to the presence of the single male I encountered on two different days. I never saw a female in my three days in the woods.


The male I encountered was very tame. He would hang out in a small patch of woods and move about on the ground and also periodically shift from the ground up onto low branches.


In both mornings that I encountered him, at around 0745am, he did not mind my clambering noisily into the thick woods from the trail. Both times I spent more than a half-hour with the bird, departing and leaving him to his ongoing activities.


At one point the male, perched on the ground, ran straight at me and approached to within a couple of feed of me.


I never heard the male make any sounds except those sounds he produced with his wings. He did not do a lot of display, instead just moving back and forth from the ground to the low tree branches and back. I assume he did not confuse me with a female grouse, and that had a female grouse been present, he would of done his thing more resolutely.


This patch of old growth spruce-fir forest and the adjacent bog and lake are a wonderful place for a naturalist to spend time. It is very verdant and peaceful and filled with solitude. The presence (or possible presence) of all sorts of wilderness creatures makes it all the more enchanting. I saw Beaver and Muskrat in the wetlands. On my last morning there the main patch was filled with the footprints of a cow and calf Moose that had passed through since I had been there late the previous afternoon. I also saw scat of a Black Bear. I am assuming the Fisher and Porcupine were in the vicinity. The Vermont Fish & Game folks have added a new boardwalk out to the lake itself--which is a wonderful place to take it all in.

One suggestion for future visitors. For those eager to encounter a Spruce Grouse, be sure to visit early in the year—before the 5th of May.