Maumee Bay SP Boardwalk 5/20-- Virginia Rail

Cute!
Photo: Shari Zirlin

We had dinner with our friends Jimmy & Susan at the lodge at Maumee Bay SP on the 19th. Just before we met they had walked on the boardwalk through the nearby marsh and had found a Virginia Rail. We went back the next afternoon to refind it. No pictures of this bird, we found it and its chick, but we could only hear them despite them seeming so close that you felt you could reach out into the reeds and touch them.

However, along the way, we came across the 2nd Eastern Screech-Owl of the trip; the first had also been on the boardwalk trail, but farther along, a couple of days earlier. This bird, which we must have passed on the way to the first one, was a red morph. I'd never seen a red morph before, but then, this was probably only the 3rd screech-owl I've ever actually seen.

Two quality birds on a small list:

11 species
Mallard  2
Virginia Rail  2     heard both juvenile & adult
Eastern Screech-Owl  1     red morph
Eastern Phoebe  1
Gray-cheeked Thrush  1
Wood Thrush  1     Heard
Common Yellowthroat  1     
Yellow Warbler  1     Heard
Red-winged Blackbird  15
Common Grackle  5
House Sparrow  1