bird story

With a reprieve from hot weather, rain, and air quality alerts, this weekend I traveled to Lake Erie’s southwest shore in Ohio to check out shorebird, waterfowl, and terns.

I was thrilled to find a Snowy Egret (199th bird species for 2023) and almost half-dozen Short-billed Dowitchers at Howard Marsh Metropark.

Both birds are rare to find in southeast Michigan, but not at the two areas I visited in northwest Ohio.

When I’ve seen the Snowy Egret and Short-billed Dowitchers in Michigan, they’re usually 1/4 to 1/2 mile away.

Not so this weekend, when I had good looks at both birds.

The Short-billed Dowitchers were foraging along the shoreline just east of the parking lot.

It was nice to not have to peer through a spotting scope to see them!

Part of the reason to travel to Ohio was to see the rare Piping Plover reported at the beach this week at Maumee Bay State Park.

The last time Piping Plovers were at Maumee State Park was 2021, when the first pair in 83 years nested there.

I saw one of the Piping Plover chicks at Maumee in September 2021.

Sadly, none of the Piping Plovers returned to the park last year.

And despite searching the beach twice in five hours yesterday, I couldn’t find the plover.