Ohio, Lake Erie shore sites

I drove from Brother Chris' to Minerva Ohio, and stayed with my Uncle Steve. My Grandmother at 102 is in a local nursing home, and I wanted to see her as well, also a long lost cousin Vicki, Steve's daughter. The next morning after another brief visit to the home, I headed on west to the far end of Lake Erie, just south-east of Toledo. There are several sites along the lakeshore worth visiting. I started with Maumee Bay State Park, which has an excellent boardwalk, over a mile of wetland walking through varied habitat. It wasn't very birdy there, being well past noon. There's a nature center there as well, and I got directions to an area called Crane Creek, an undeveloped State Park and consrvation area, which had been mentioned by another birder I met on the boardwalk.

Turns out it's one of the premier birding areas on the northern border of the US. The geography thet generates that distinction is its location opposite Point Pelee in Ontario. Southbound migrants especially funnel to the point, and then crossing the lake by the shortest path come ashore in the area between the state park and Crane Creek, which also includes Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. Although I didn't stop there on this trip, I once walked miles of levees and had a wonderful time. The three sites together could keep a person entertained for a week easily during either migration, with camping or a lodge at Maumee Bay.

So it's getting later in the afternoon and I start down the boardwalk at Crane Creek. Met several birders, and I had the atomic bird calling device, so turned it on. Within minutes I was seeing over half a dozen warblers and other passerines. Very satisfying. I tried it at several other likely looking palces along the walk, and didn't check it all out, since I was reluctant to linger having still to get to some camping. In about three hours of non-prime-time, it was still possible to add nine species to the Ohio list. I ended the trip with a stop at the Black Swamp Bird Observatory, which has a bookstore and information center near the entrance to Crane Creek. Highly recommended, very nice and knowledgeable folks.

Then I had to drag through rush hour in Toledo, with lots of road repair, to get to Sterling State Park in Michigan, maybe 30 miles north and on a small island on the western end of the lake. Very intensely developed, mostly a a parking lot with some grass for a campground. Most folks seemed to be there to launch boats into the lake. Expensive too, almost $30 for a night, probably the most I've ever paid to park and sleep in the campershell. But it turned out to have some pretty good birding, especially along one grassy field where I'd gone to look for an Osprey nest. Found several warblers, the Osprey, ducks and waders also. I birded there before sundown, and again early the next morning before heading north.

September Eastern trip - Philadelphia area

I was in Philadelphia on a family emergency, the sudden but not unsurprising death of my Mother. There was a lot of time to drag through while waiting for the gears to grind out their sad duties, and I needed time alone. I went birding at John Heinz NWR three times, and made a couple of trips to Ridley Creek State Park as well. Heinz, also known as Tinicum, was very good. I managed to walk the whole way around the main impoundment one morning, and found about eight southbound migrant warblers, the best being a Connecticut, up close clear view, and the bird had the most perfect eye-ring I'd ever seen. I wasn't sure what it was, but had time to look it over carefully and get the field marks, so after checking the field guide I was back in the Visitor Center to make sure I noted the location in the sightings book. I was told the next day someone had put it on the hotline. I tried to get it posted on the listserv, by asking tht someone on birdchat forward the info, but that didn't seem to work. I also found new ducks, herons, and flycatchers, so by the end of the visit I'd added 16 new tics to the PA list, now at a decent 135.

Ridley Creek was a completely different habitat, almost entirely hardwood forest and some brushy meadows, and one long walk along the riparian corridor of the creek proper. I didn't feel like I'd done that well there, in spite of arriving early on a cool wet morning. When I was following the PA list on a previous visit, it had a lot of good birds of the passerine kind, mostly near the office which had the best habitat. The walk along the creek was motivated by a talk with another birder I met at Tinicum, but except for the first quarter mile wasn't very active. It was later in the day, and mostly it was very high canopy and not much underbrush. Probably too many deer.

On the way home I visited my brother Chris at Bellefonte, and got directions to a State Park near there called Black Moshannon, where he likes to spend a week with his son from time to time. Great place, a genuine extensive mountain bog, a true tarn, complete with black water and carnivorous plants. I wasn't able to spend a lot of time, and it was late afternoon, but I'm certain I'll be back some spring. It's part of the Susquehanna Wildlife Trail, which has a nice guide available for around ten dollars coveringa a lot of sites in central Pennsylvania.