When:
Early flight - 10 October - 10 November; typically as singles or single digit flocks; favoring the Lake Plain. Includes occasional sightings in the northeast and Western Basin, and Islands. Possibly represents stragglers from the northeast having passed to the south of the Great Lakes rather than with the bulk of the flight along the north shore of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.
Main flight - 15 Nov. - 15 Dec.;
Thanksgiving weekend = the peak passage, give or take a
week depending upon the weather. Some flocks can hold on well
into December. Peak flights in 1997 and 1999 took place around
Christmas. Prior to the recovery of the species in the Midwest,
and the attendant mild fall seasons of recent years, this late
passage would have been seen as very unusual.
Where:
The principal flight takes place west of a line extending from Toledo
to Columbus to Portsmouth.
A distinction needs to be made between passage migration and staging. Deer Creek Wildlife Area has already been mentioned. For at least the past 6 years, this site has proven a reliable location for the collection, over several days, of resting cranes. Numbers have exceeded 100 birds in several years. Staging may begin 12-17 Nov. although may not be seen until 4-8 December. Other sites hosting nominal resting flocks include Big Island W.A. and Killdeer Plains W.A. These are not the only sites but are among the more consistent for sightings of double-digit flock sizes. Locals will have better knowledge than I, but from what I can piece together, best chances for finding birds at these sites is to visit before or during severe weather; conditions which may force birds to interrupt their passage over the state.
Passage Migration: Sandhills are like migrating raptors, they love a high pressure ridge. The story has been told so many times over the years it is almost a cliche. "I was out working in the yard when I heard something. Looking up, I saw a large of flock high overhead". Just as a cold-front, especially a fast-moving one (a clipper) induces hawks to fly in the fall so too do cranes get the impetus to move. But they do not do so until the front has passed and with it nasty weather replaced by the clear blue skies of a high pressure system. On such a day, the cranes will ride thermals attaining great altitudes, and cruise southwards. Some years many may pass over the Ohio counties bordering Indiana (900 in 1997), and other years they are missed.
In NW Ohio the chronology favors the late morning/midday hours of 10 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. - but matters a great deal of just where the birds are launching from. In SW Ohio the chronology is extended from 10:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Best case scenario.
Set yourself in an Ohio border county with a preference for
Hamilton County at the bottom of the funnel. I also like the Little
Miami River corridor and the glacial moraine running north-south
parallel to Rt. 68 from Bellefontaine to Springfield. The latter is the
logical physical feature to lead birds out of the Lake Plain and into
the southwest. Be out and about from 12:00 - 4:00 p.m. Walk the
dog, chop wood, rake leaves, taking a moment every so often to
listen very carefully for a sound that is barely there. It dances on the
wind like softly spoken voices that you cannot quite place. At
that very moment when you are questioning whether you are
hearing anything at all, force yourself to look straight up. You may
have to scan the plain blue sky with binoculars to find them
but they will be there; 10 or 20 or perhaps 200. If you're lucky, late
afternoon/early evening flocks, having descended off the thermals
of the day, can appear just above the tree tops.
BTW, the backside of this clipper charging through the Great lakes should offer up ideal conditions on . . . Thanksgiving day?
cheers
Vic Fazio
Shaker Hts., OH