Big Day Bus: Magee Marsh Parking Lot 5/10--Scarlet Tanager

Magee Marsh is not just a migrant trap; it is THE migrant trap in the Mid-west. Birds heading north for the boreal forests of Canada, hit Lake Erie, think better of crossing it, and nestle down into the trees and wetlands of Magee. Magee is Mecca. Magee is the keystone of the inverted arch of wetlands around the southwestern rim of Lake Erie. It is Cape May, Jamaica Bay, Central Park, Sandy Hook and Higbee Beach all rolled into one seething, roiling mass of warblers, flycatchers, vireos, tanagers, orioles, buntings and the crazed hordes of birders who love them. The mile-long boardwalk that snakes through the marsh is the epicenter of Biggest Week birding. We didn't go there; all the guides for the The Biggest Week had agreed to avoid the boardwalk on their tours, otherwise it would have been like Times Square on New Year's Eve. We would have to bird it on our own, which was fine (in theory) with me.

Photos: Shari Zirlin

Even the parking lot was full of wonders. As our bus pulled into the lot, the woman behind us started to jump up and down, exclaiming, "Woodcock, woodcock." I didn't see how there was a woodcock in the parking lot, but she knew that smack in the middle of the lot on a grassy divide, a woodcock had made her nest and was sitting on it. The Black Swamp staff had cordoned off the area with some flimsy yellow tape, but it was easy to get to the site. It was not easy to see the woodcock. They are amazingly cryptically colored and even though I was standing right over it, it took me a good few minutes to finally make it out against the grass, dead leaves, and dirt. It was like playing "Where's Waldo." 

That wasn't the only nest easily seen. At the west end of the lot, in a dead tree, Great Horned Owl fledglings were in open view. Seeing them in the broken off tree made me vow to look at every lopped off dead tree I see.

Oh, and just as a by the way, our first Scarlet Tanager of the year was also sighted in the lot.

Magee Marsh Parking Lot
5 species
American Woodcock  1
Great Horned Owl  1
Northern Flicker  1    Heard
Yellow Warbler  1    Heard
Scarlet Tanager  1