Ohio
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Unfortunately, I only had time to spot check a few of the gull watching sites from E. 7nd/E.55th area west to Lorain. I understand Eastlake was largely free of ice as of this morning with little gull activity but that may have been quite different by the afternoon. With a light NE breeze along the Cleveland lakefront, ice was well up the warm water outlet at E. 7nd St. Indeed, there was no warm water effluent and there were very few gulls in the immediate vicinity. However, in the lee of the outer breakwall, a half mile long lead in the ice was attracting a lot of attention especially that of the big gulls. From 9:30 to 11:00 am, I observed the following from E. 55th (one has to walk out as access to the outer parking lot has been roped off).
Ring-billed Gull - 5500
Herring Gull - 3000
Great Black-backed Gull - 1170 (more beyond the breakwall but I chose not
carry a scope out and just used bins to count the adults inside the breakwall)
Double-crested Cormorant - 2 (I had one but Jen Brumfield picked out another)
American Coot - 1 (I understand another was at Eastlake this morning).
Bald Eagle - 1 ad (thankfully minding it's own business over at Dike 14)
Red-breasted Merganser - 1200+
- massive flight outside the breakwall all morning eastward
Common Merganser - 3600
- about 1/3rd moving east with the Red-breasted Mergs; the rest were
adult males
lining the entire length of the lead running along the outer breakwall.
Canada Goose - 158 (resting in the parking lot of E. 55th marina).
Crossing over the Cuyahoga River, I could see black dots along leads in the ice (which was a pancake type and moving westward rapidly). At least another 200 adult Great Black-backed Gulls were in the immediate vicinity of the mouth of the river.
Avon Lake : 11:55 to 1:15 Canada Goose - 1 Mallard - 171 Lesser Scaup - 285+ Bufflehead - 9 Common Goldeneye - 27 Red-breasted Merganser - 465 (on the water) Common Mergansers - 920+ (on the water) Merganser species - very distant movement west to east = 2400 Ring-billed Gull - comparatively few ...XXX Herring Gull - 2400 Great Black-backed Gull - 420+ Glaucous Gull - 2 adults Lorain Harbor: 1:50 - 2:35 I had expected the harbor to be frozen solid but much of the middle portion was open. Outside the harbor, ice ridges were evident on the windward side where ice was piling up, but a half mile out from the mouth of the harbor was another huge lead in the ice, lined with black dots as far as I could see. At a minimum there were ... Ring-billed Gull - 2800 (most upriver which was still open in places) Herring Gull - 2000 Great Black-backed Gull - 140 (just in the immediate vicinity of the harbor) Lesser Scaup - 320+ (bunched up against the lighthouse breakwall) Red-breasted Merganser - 25+ (in the harbor) Common Merganser - 675 (in the harbor) Merganser species - 1600 (still going strong west to east far offshore) Failed to locate the pelican. Cumulatively, these are the largest concentrations of Great Black-backed Gull and Common Merganser I have encountered within the Central Basin of Lake Erie. Ice conditions can be expected to change daily if not hourly the next few days until it solidifies. I would have liked very much to have seen the conditions at Eastlake this afternoon .... perhaps this is where all those mergs are heading. Tomorrow southerly winds ahead of a front will blow some of this out, at the least creating leads where there were none today. Sunday, after the snowstorm anticipated presently on Saturday has passed, could be a very productive day along the lakeshore. |
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Vic Fazio
Shaker Hts, OH