January 8th

 

January 8th 

          Today was a real BIRDING BONANZA!  I’m sure our kids would say, “Mom and Dad, you are nuts!”  They are probably right, but it was a fantastic day of birding.  We left the house a little before 7am and drove to the Chapel Hill Shopping Center in Cuyahoga Falls outside of Akron.  It is an ordinary suburban area that has a “murder” of Fish Crows living there.  Fish Crows are generally found along the East Coast and in the South and are rare in Ohio.  They are similar to American Crows but are easily distinguished by their nasal voice.

          Next, we went to Painesville which is east of Cleveland to search for the Fish Crow’s larger Corvid cousin the Common Raven.  There is a very small breeding population here, but the raven is very rare in Ohio.  With a tip from a local birder, we were able to locate three Ravens.  This same guy told us about a Red-throated Loon that was nearby, and we followed him to the Fairport Harbor Pier and found the loon.

          Then we went to the Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve to look for a wintering Northern Saw-whet Owl.  When we first arrived, no other birders were around, and we didn’t know where to look for this very small owl.  Up walks another birder who says, “I saw him in this tree two weeks ago” and lo and behold there he was!

          We made two stops near Lorain to try and find a Long-tailed and a Harlequin Duck with no success.  Our next stop was the Amherst Beaver Creek Reservation which has a large cell phone tower where Black Vultures roost.  Black Vultures are a southern bird and are unusual in northern Ohio but there they were.

          As the sun was setting, we cruised down the Chaussee Causeway near Cedar Point and saw four Mute Swans which were a new species for the year.  The Red-throated Loon, the Fish Crow and the Common Raven were all Ohio Life Birds for us.  It was a very special day.

(10 new species, total 79)  

          Mute Swan                                             Black Vulture

          American Black Duck                             Turkey Vulture

          Canvasback                                           Northern Saw-whet Owl (scarce)

          Ruddy Duck                                           Fish Crow (rare)

          Red-throated Loon (rare)                       Common Raven (very rare)   

                                           Fish Crows

                                           Northern Saw-whet Owl
 
                                           Black Vulture


 
                     

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