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Here is a round up of highlights from the Sandusky Bay area yesterday 10 Nov. with a focus on mudflats.
SW 8 mph 42-52 deg.
East Harbor State Park 8:00 - 10:00 am
Common Loon - 3
Pied-billed Grebe - 15
Great Blue Heron - 37 (half of what is typical for Nov.)
Mute Swan - 28
Common Tern - 1
Forster's Tern - 8
American Robin - 92
Carolina Wren - 1
Winter Wren - 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet - 7
Black-capped Chickadee - 19
Yellow-rumped Warbler - 9
White-throated Sparrow - 21
Rusty Blackbird - 110
Meadowbrook Lake - 10:15 (surrounding lands now designated a Preserve
under the auspices of Danbury Twp. Ottawa Co. Birders will want to take
note of fairly extensive grasslands; the largest contiguous tract on Marblehead
Peninsula.
Dunlin - 47
Port Clinton beach - 10:30 - 11:00
Canada Goose - 2600+ (among my highest tallies for this site)
Mallard - 900+
Killdeer - 1
Forster's Tern - 15 (viewed from the west end pier)
Pine Siskin - 2
Metzger Marsh W.A. - 11:30
very high water for the date; nothing more than 60+ American Coots
Turtle Creek - 11:50-12:20
plenty of mudflats but no shorebirds at 3 sites
Toussaint W.A. at Rt. 19 - 12:30
incongruously high water with no mudflat exposure
Little Portage tributary at Oak-Harbor SE Rd. -12:40 to 1:00
American Golden Plover - 1 (close to the road and actively calling;
one of my latest fall sightings)
Killdeer - 1
Dunlin - 87
Little Portage W.A. - no birds on the river or the entrance road wetlands
Muddy Creek at Rt. 53 - 1:15
Bonaparte's Gulls - 300+
Sandusky R. oxbow off Rt. 53 - 1:40 pm
Greater Yellowlegs - 1 (a traditional Nov. site for the species)
Portage River at Rt. 2 - 2:00
Common Tern - 3
Forster's Tern - 3
Medusa Marsh - 2:20
Mute Swan - 28
Great Blue Heron - 31 (remarkably low)
Great Egret - 1 (only one of the day; I typically could locate 25 or more
on such a excursion in mid-Nov. the past 8 yrs or so)
Cedar Point Chausee - 3:30
plenty of mudflat but no shorebirds
Castalia Pond - 4:10 usual assortment of waterfowl
Birders will want to take note that this site has joined the rest of
Ohio in banning the feeding of waterfowl, a tradition at Castalia
for many decades.
American Wigeon - 118 (most waterfowl do not accumulate here in their
winter concentrations until late December; the American Wigeon is
a consistent exception with its wintering numbers often established
by early October).
Willow Point W.A. - 4:45
high water with virtually no mudflat exposure
only waterfowl on the ponds were 7 swans mixing surprisingly well
together considering that 4 were Mute Swans and 3 were Trumpeters.
I also took in about 10 miles of Lake Erie shoreline checking for wayward swallows and alcids (3 Ancient Murrelets in the past week from Colorado to Michigan suggest an incursion of the species) but no such luck.
Mute Swan tally of 60 for the day in about 2/3rds of what I have come to expect in recent years.
cheers
Vic Fazio
Shaker Hts, OH