Big Day Bus: Ottawa NWR Estuary Trail 5/10--Trumpeter Swan, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Veery, Swainson's Thrush, Northern Waterthrush, American Redstart, Cape May Warbler, Northern Parula, CLAY-COLORED SPARROW

So, where do you go if you're not going on the boardwalk? You go to the Crane Creek Estuary trail, another section of Ottawa NWR, which borders Magee and has been made accessible from the west end of the Magee parking lot.

On the way to the trail we met Greg Miller (Celebrity) and he told Mr Richardson that a rare sparrow for those parts, and life bird for Shari & me was at the head of the trail--CLAY-COLORED SPARROW--just sitting in the middle of shrub for all to look at.

We also got our first good looks at (and heard) Trumpeter Swans. These swans are, unlike Mute Swans, native to North America, though they were pretty much extirpated in the recent past in the Ohio area and these are the descendants of a released population. And they are "countable."

More warblers were found along the trail including Cape May Warbler and Northern Parula. The other rarity there was a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher that had a small knot of birds gathered in front of the tree it was in.

While none of these birds are life birds, aside from the parula which we see fairly often, we have only seen them a handful of times (Trumpeter Swans once on Long Island, far out of their range) and we can go years between sightings.

After an 1 1/2 hours on that trail and having gathered 39 species for the walk, the Big Day was officially declared over. As I said in an earlier post, the group tallied 124 species, while I had 98. I have only had one day "bigger" and that was in Texas when we toured the King Ranch and ended the day with 101.
Canada Goose  X
Trumpeter Swan  3
Mallard  10
Great Blue Heron  1
Dunlin  100
Bonaparte's Gull  X
Herring Gull  5
Caspian Tern  1
Common Tern  5
Downy Woodpecker  1
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher  1
Least Flycatcher  2
Eastern Kingbird  1
Warbling Vireo  1
Tree Swallow  X
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  1
Veery  1
Swainson's Thrush  2
American Robin  5
Northern Waterthrush  1
Blue-winged Warbler  1
Prothonotary Warbler  1
Nashville Warbler  1
Common Yellowthroat  1
American Redstart  1
Cape May Warbler  2
Northern Parula  1
Magnolia Warbler  1
Yellow Warbler  3
Black-throated Blue Warbler  1
Palm Warbler  1
Yellow-rumped Warbler  5
Black-throated Green Warbler  2
CLAY-COLORED SPARROW  1    Gray nape,pale colored sparrow. 
Scarlet Tanager  2
Indigo Bunting  1
Red-winged Blackbird  X
Common Grackle  X
Baltimore Oriole  2