NORTHEAST OHIO BIRDING

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In Search of Prime Shorebird Spots

by Jim McCarty

Monday August 18, 2008, 4:52 PM

Shorebird habitat is precious in Ohio, and gaining access to it is the key to birding success.

Some of the state's finest mudflats are at the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge west of Port Clinton. But often the choicest spots at the refuge are off-limits to birders and other nature enthusiasts for all but a few days a month.

Fortunately for a group of young birders I accompanied there last weekend, it helps to have friends in high places.

Kim Kaufman of the Black Swamp Bird Observatory coordinates field trips for the Ohio Young Birders Club, one of the best of its kind in the country. She drove 10 of us in the Bird Bus onto the Ottawa dikes that crisscross the network of impoundments where migrating shorebirds find food and safe haven.

The abundance and variety of sandpipers and other waders turned what could have been a hit-and-run stop into a four-hour birding blowout.

Like paparazzi at a Brad-and-Angelina movie premiere, we lined up behind rows of spotting scopes to scan the shorebirds. Club sponsors Jen Brumfield and Gabe Leidy of Local Patch tours served as our lead spotters.

The stars of the show were a pair of marbled godwits, long-legged beauties with oversized two-toned bills and a tawny plumage that seemed to glow in the perfect morning light.

Godwits are Great Plains nesters that spend winters on southern coasts but rarely visit Ohio. Why these birds were here must be attributed to the inviting habitat and available sustenance, a combination of fish, worms and other aquatic insects.

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Shorebird followers migrate to reliable inland waters

by Jim McCarty

Monday August 11, 2008, 3:32 PM

The much-anticipated shorebird haven arising from the mudflats at the Lorain Impoundment remained a work in progress last weekend.

The 10-day river dredge operation was pumping sludge in a steady gusher on Sunday, filling a network of ponds too deep, for now, for all but the longest-legged shorebirds to gain access to its bounty of insects.

Fortunately, Northeast Ohio birders in need of a sandpiper fix and lacking the time, fuel funds or inclination to travel to Conneaut Harbor had an old reliable shorebird habitat to fall back on.

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Shorebird season is upon us

by Jim McCarty

Wednesday August 06, 2008, 2:29 PM

The many subtleties of shorebirds were on display last weekend, and posed challenges during field trips to some of the best muddy habitats Northeast Ohio has to offer.

Of course, it helps to have two of the sharpest young birders in the state, Jen Brumfield and Gabe Leidy, along as guides.

Although it may feel as if summer has just begun, the fall shorebird migration is already under way. Many of these sandpipers, plovers and phalaropes nested on the tundra or in northern potholes, and have thousands of miles to travel to reach their winter destinations in the Southern Hemisphere. So they need to get a head start to take advantage of feeding sites at wetlands along the way.

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Summer birds bring simple pleasure

by Jim McCarty

Wednesday July 30, 2008, 5:35 PM

These are hard times for birders.

There's a common misconception among nonbirders that winter is the slowest season. But we know it's the dog days of summer when the heat drains our energy and drives the birds into the shelter of cool, lush woodlands and grassy hiding places.

Our natural inclination is to park our binoculars for a few months and take a break from the birds. But that would eliminate the opportunity for special rendezvous with some of our most beloved neotropical visitors.

Jewels of the forest such as the scarlet tanager, a surprisingly common though elusive flaming beacon of a bird with black wings and tail. The trick is to know the male's song, a raspy, robin-like presentation described as "hurry worry flurry blurry" in the Peterson field guide.

Still, picking tanagers out of the upper reaches of the canopy can be frustrating, as was the case last weekend during a Kirtland Bird Club field trip to Linda Gilbert's homestead in South Russell Township.

Gilbert works as a naturalist for the Geauga Parks District and every year hosts Kirtland Bird Club members on an outing to her 38-acre tract of woodlands, fields and a pond that has been in her family for three generations.

Wisely, much of the day was spent stomping around the habitat chasing butterflies and dragonflies, which are abundant on the property and more reliable than the birds this time of year.

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Mystery bird visits Lorain County

by Jim McCarty

Monday July 21, 2008, 5:11 PM

I never had visited the Charlemont Reservation in the deepest southwestern corner of Lorain County, and yet on a visit last weekend the park felt strangely familiar.

It must have been the summer stew of steamy heat, the drone of bugs and the intoxicating scent of grass and flowers that flicked a memory switch in my head and took me back to my youth.

I spent many a hot July day stomping through the fields of west Akron in search of wildlife and adventure, which branded a permanent imprint on my mind and character. If only I had the foresight to bring along a pair of binoculars, imagine the variety of birds I could have found.

In my continuing search for exciting new birding destinations, I took a tip from Ethan Kistler and drove far into the countryside intent on finding as many grassland species as possible last weekend.

Ethan, 17, is one of Northeast Ohio's top young birders and recently made a startling discovery while conducting a breeding bird census at Charlemont. As he scanned the perimeter along Quarry Road he heard the unmistakable insectlike buzzing song of a clay-colored sparrow, a common Great Plains breeder but a remarkable bird in these parts and potentially a first summer sighting for the area.

Only after the bird was netted and examined in the hand did we learn how special this bird really was.

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Woodland Birds Abound at Park

by Jim McCarty

Monday July 14, 2008, 5:22 PM

All of us have our favorite birding spots.

For some of us, that place is convenient or close by, such as an inviting back yard or a neighborhood park, especially now that gasoline costs about $4 a gallon.

For those of us who have difficulty getting around, ease of birding is essential. The location must have smooth paths on solid, flat ground such as the Sandy Ridge Reservation in North Ridgeville, the Towpath through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park or the Bath Nature Preserve in Summit County.

For most of us, though, the choice comes down to the variety of birds that may be found. Traditional migratory traps such as Headlands Beach State Park, Mentor Lagoons, Magee Marsh, Killdeer Plains, The Wilds and Conneaut Harbor are favored spots. For a list of Northeast Ohio's best locales, click here.

Beginning this week, and for the next few months, I'll explore several little-known birding spots that have come onto my radar screen.

To kick off this occasional series, I joined Dwight and Ann Chasar and about 20 other birders on an early morning walk last weekend at Howe Meadow in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Few birders know the park as well as the Chasars, volunteers who organize the twice-a-year bird census surveys and lead birding tours in the park.

Most Northeast Ohio birders are familiar with the park's popular stops, such as the Coliseum grasslands, the Station Road Bridge Trailhead, the Ira Road beaver pond and the Ledges Trail.

But the Howe Meadow was new for most of us. And what an enjoyable introduction it was.

The main trail passes through a shaded canopy of towering black walnut trees reminiscent of the renowned cathedral in the Boy Scout Woods at High Island, Texas.

For more than a half-hour we leaned back, craned our necks and enjoyed dappled sunlit views of some of our most brightly plumaged woodland songbirds.

The birds included hard-to-see stunners such as the blue-winged warbler, scarlet tanager, rose-breasted grosbeak, indigo bunting and Baltimore oriole. Some of those birds were more often heard than seen, such as the red-eyed vireo, Eastern wood-pewee and blue-gray gnatcatcher.

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Peterson Bird Guide Gets a Makeover

by Jim McCarty

Monday July 07, 2008, 4:31 PM

When I started birding 30 years ago, North American birders basically had two choices of field guides: Golden or Peterson.

The selection and quality of field guides have improved markedly since then, and I have at least a dozen different ones in my home library.

But throughout the course of those three decades, Roger Tory Peterson's "Field Guide to the Birds of North America" has never left the mix. To this day, a well-worn copy remains within arm's reach whenever I'm writing an Aerial View column or researching a difficult identification question.

Now we learn that, 12 years after Peterson's death at the age of 87, and 100 years from his birth, a new Peterson field guide has been prepared for release next month.

It's a compilation of the best elements of Peterson's groundbreaking 1934 edition, married with 40 new paintings, digitally enhanced original art work, updated text, and new range maps, plus links to three hours worth of video podcasts.

While the original book was small enough to fit inside a jacket or pants pocket, the new version is a more substantial 6-by-9 inches, combining the Eastern and Western field guides, which were originally separate volumes. These days, birders are advised to take notes in the field and to leave the field guide in the car or at home for consultation later.

Best of all, the new field guide employs the work of several of the country's most talented birders, including the latest range and distribution maps rendered by Larry Rosche of Kent; text revisions by Bill Thompson III of Marietta, editor of Bird Watcher's Digest; and paintings of new species by one of my son Bret's favorite guides, Michael O'Brien of Cape May, N.J. Thompson and another young birder's guide, Jeff Gordon of Lewes, Del., created the videos.

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Birding During the Doldrums

by Jim McCarty

Monday June 30, 2008, 3:31 PM

The standards by which we measure what's considered "good birding" fluctuate during the summer doldrums of June and July.

The spring migration ended a month ago, and the first wave of shorebirds heading southward won't pass through Northeast Ohio for another month.

So unless you're able to head for one of the coasts or Canada, like I did for two weeks recently, your local birding choices are limited.

Some of us choose to take a break from travel and relax in the back yard watching the cedar waxwings and gray catbirds loading up on serviceberries, or Baltimore orioles and American robins filling their beaks with food for hungry chicks.

Or you can do what my son Bret and I did last weekend, save some gas and head for a few of the old reliable spots closer to home. One of my favorites is the Ledges Trail at the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. This picturesque micro-habitat in the old Virginia Kendall Park features a lush hemlock forest that's carpeted with ferns and as solemn as a church. It attracts several nesting species rarely found south of the Canadian border. Birds like the winter wren, a stub-tailed sprite with a complex song of tinkling trills that echoes off the limestone ledges and seems to go on forever. Continue reading "Birding During the Doldrums" »