Biggest Week in American Birding...(Ohio): 12th May

I began my day within Ottawa NWR at the magical migrant trap of Cedar Point. An empidonax flycatcher feeding in the low shrubs provided an early challenge and this mute bird had to be left as simply "Traill's Flycatcher", although the poor eye ring pointed towards Willow? After a slow start we bumped into migrant after migrant and by the end of our few hours on site we had run overtime and racked up 18 species of warbler, including Mourning, Blackburnian, Wilson's, and Chestnut-sided Warblers, in addition to Northern Waterthrush, Black-billed Cuckoo, and even a rare sighting of Clay-colored Sparrow in these parts. My highlight though may just have been the pair of Sandhill Cranes that glided overhead shortly after arrival, a late, late lifebird in my birding life!

Back on the Magee Marsh boardwalk in the late afternoon saw slim picking out there, aside from a male Wilson's Warbler that seemed intent in getting rid of all other warblers from its chosen feeding area. However, this spiffy Prothonotary Warbler was the true Magee star today, one of a pair prospecting for a nest in the area. This stellar male dropped into a dead branch and was greeted with a flurry of flash activity from the assembled bird paparazzi, the bird looking like it was lined up for the oscars not the Biggest Week in American Birding Festival. And appropriately so turned this way and that and seemed to revel in the limelight!