07 May 2010

The Biggest Week in American Birding: Day 1 (Ohio), 6th May



I begun my day again, and started THE BIGGEST WEEK IN AMERICAN BIRDING, in the Mallard Lake parking lot (Oak Openings), where pretty soon yesterday’s male Cerulean Piped up and began calling. Bins were all pointed skyward and amazingly Michael Retter quickly picked his gleaming white unders up, as he sung his lungs out from the top of a tree. More incredible still was when we both managed to get him lined up in the ‘scope for all. A walk along the road produced some cute Field Sparrows, and an interesting Blue-winged Warbler, whose yellow-tinged wing bars betrayed “dodgy” parentage somewhere along the line. After a frustratingly long wait we finally got crackerjack looks at several hulking Lark Sparrows around the sand dunes, and further along still a male Summer Tanager, a pair of Pine Warblers (photo), and an Eastern Towhee all gave themselves up.


A brief period on the Magee Marsh boardwalk in the afternoon got me this Kentucky Warbler creeping through the garlic mustard (bottom photo)…

1 comment:

Dave said...

Lucky boy! I want that Kentucky Warbler! I have yet to see one, it would be a life bird for us.