[Maine-birds] Birding Lesson number 726

Every other year or so I spend a couple weeks in the Cleveland area in May to catch the spring migration there, which in most years is quite good as birds bunch up along Lake Erie before continuing across to Canada.  Unfortunately, this year was really poor, however, as the weather there was similar to the weather here and everything was at least two weeks late.  When I left on 20 May, common woodland birds such as Hooded Warbler still hadn't arrived in any numbers.

At any rate, one of the best things about northern Ohio in spring is a place called Magee Marsh near Toledo (and across Lake Erie from Pelee Point.)  Especially since Magee is about the same distance from my sister-in-laws apartment in a western suburb of Cleveland as it is from my home in the midcoast to Hills Beach.  In most years, 15+ warblers a day is almost a given....I found 17 my first day there.  The second day I spent there was slower but there were still birds to be seen.  I hadn't yet seen a Nashville and sort of had an eye out for one, when a bird that was yellow up to the base of the bill popped into view.  Something wasn't quite right for Nashville, though.  The bird was chunky and long-tailed and the bill seemed a bit too large.  Most noticeably, the head was too dark.  The bird disappeared quickly and since there were plenty of birds right where I was standing on the boardwalk, I didn't give it much thought.

On the way back to Cleveland, however, I almost stopped in the middle of Interstate 90......because it dawned on me I may have missed my one life chance to see a Kirltand's in migration.  Sure enough, when I got home and did some quick research, the Kirtland's did fit the brief look I had......chunky, thick-billed, long-tailed, dark headed.  Sibley even indicates that yellow to the bill with a dark bluish-grey upperparts is definitive.  I'm too old to groan over such mishaps, and I certainly wouldn't add a bird to my list with such a brief look.  But I'd bet you a dollar to a donut that I just wasn't keeping my head in the game.

Now that I think about it, this is the same thing that happened with Birding Lesson number 725.  A few years ago I was at Hills Beach during shorebird season and noticed a Little Blue Heron on the rocks that curve out toward Basket Island on low tides.  I actually wondered what a little-blue would be doing way out there on those rocks, but just shrugged.  A day or two later someone reported a dark-phase Western Reef Heron not far down the coast. 

Hope this tendency doesn't last until Birding Lesson number 727 :).  Duh.  PAY ATTENTION, Bruce.

By the way, if you should ever have the opportunity to visit Magee Marsh in May don't pass it up.  There's a boardwalk through some prime habitat right up against the Lake Erie shoreline, and it's the type of place where Redstarts keep the mosquitoes away from your ears and birds can often be identified without bins.  There is at least one pair of breeding Prothonotaries at Magee every year.  This spring my bird of the trip was a male Mourning Warbler perched right out in the open for at least 30 seconds.  It's also one of the few places where Kirtland's Warblers are found with anything approaching regularity.  Sigh.

Thirty years ago one would be lucky to bump into two or three dozen people on Magee's boardwalk, and maybe a handful would have cameras.  Now, busy days are almost like driving in Bangkok and it seems everyone has $5000 of camera gear around their neck.  New York camera stores should give large donations to National Audubon and advertise same :).  Birding has really taken off, and one can even find Amish families on the boardwalk with bins in the hands of children as well as adults.  Very cool.

Cheers (and pay attention),

BAB

 

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Bruce Bartrug
Nobleboro, Maine, USA
bbartrug@gmail.com
www.brucebartrug.com

•The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.  - Albert Einstein

•In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. -Martin Luther King

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