Ferry to Point Pelee 5/9--Common Tern, Cliff Swallow

Normally, the ferry from Port Clinton, OH to Point Pelee National Park in Ontario, Canada, doesn't run this early in the Spring, but for The Biggest Week, which really is a surprisingly big deal in northwestern Ohio, they make an exception. Forty miles across Lake Erie in about an hour and a half.   We actually drove out a day early so we could take this excursion, which they only ran twice in May. So it felt like no sooner were we in Ohio than we left it, retracing our route about 35 miles from our hotel to get to the ferry at 7:15 A.M.

The first birds I noticed were swallows in the parking lot. Barn Swallows, I thought, but some of them didn't look "right." It turns out that under a drawbridge next to the terminal there is a colony of Cliff Swallows, well-known in the area, and we were able to get great looks at them from the docked boat (and a couple of photos) as they came and went to their nests.

As we left the terminal we saw our first Bald Eagles of the trip sitting on a sand bar. Eagles soon became a ho-hum bird, but the first ones are always fun to see.

Photo: Shari Zirlin

Happily, the waters of Lake Erie "lay down" nicely, as they say, and the ride was smooth both ways. I am not much for boat rides (which is why there are some sea-going birds I am just never going to see), so I didn't disembark queasy as I feared I would. Here is a photo of me not throwing up.

As we came into Leamington Harbour we saw our first Common Tern of the year sitting on a piling. I was a little surprised to see this tern, since I think of them as sea birds, but actually they, unlike Forster's Tern which is usually found in marshes, prefer to hunt over open waters, the salinity of the water being irrelevant.

From Leamington, the passengers boarded 3 school buses, complete with seat assignments for the various grade schoolers, for a 15 minute ride to Point Pelee. It was there that the serious birding began.