Biggest week in American Birding - Day 3 - May 10 - Maumee Bay, Metzger Marsh & Mallard Creek Preserve

On Tuesday, after breakfast,  we traveled the 10 miles from the hotel to Maumee Bay State Park - looking for red phase Eastern Screech Owl;....but had no luck this year. We did however, add Purple Martins and more White Crowned Sparrow's plus a few others species to our trip list...we left Maumee with total species count of 38.for the area.

 metzger marsh

Looking toward Ottawa NWR

Our next stop was Metzger Marsh Park (see link above) as a Black Tern was recently reported there. When we arrived everyone in the group began scanning the marsh for the Black Tern. After about 15 minutes, someone in the group shouted..'I have it'. In the early afternoon sun, the colors of the Black Tern where brilliant, and everyone had wonderful looks as the the tern flew back and forth over the marsh. We left the Marsh with a total of 28 species and headed back to Magee Boardwalk, after a very late lunch break.

Black Tern

The Magee boardwalk was much more crowded when we arrived...but a fast moving mid-afternoon thunder shower sent many packing.

Several new migrating species arrived overnight as we saw Black Throat ed Blue, American Redstart, Nashville and Tennessee warblers..plus we had several Northern Water thrush's calling all along the boardwalk - we never did get to see one.. In the early evening we received a report of several American Bittern and Sora Rails being seen in a nearby marsh.

American Redstart

Black Throated Green

We decided to travel to the swamp area and began asking if anyone knew how to get there. We ended up receiving directions for a friendly local birder and headed to the Mallard Creek Swamp area. Once we arrived at the correct parking area (a long story about this - we went to 2 others before finding the right one) - we proceeded to the dike area and found a large group of birders standing nearby. They informed us that the just saw and heard a American Bittern and had several Sora's calling - needless to say - our group was very excited.

Sora Rail

We stood with the group for several minutes - but no calling or visuals - so we decided to walk around the dike - we didn't proceed 200 feet when someone in the group spotted our first Sora Rail - everyone had great looks and where very excited  - as this a very rare bird in our our home area. We continued on our walk and began hearing American Bitterns calling as well as several more Sora's - our group was starting to get very excited as the American Bittern would be lifer for several of them. We kept hearing American Bitterns but could not get any visual....as we continued our walk around the dike....we did get to see several more Sora's. Then as we approached the starting point (where the original group was) - a American Bittern took flight and sailed across the marsh - giving everyone a very special in flight look - this was also a fist for me - I had seen Bitterns before but never in flight - and then a few minutes of talking about what just happened - another Bittern took flight....a WOW moment of the whole group!! Two American Bittern's observed in flight - a first for everyone in the group - not soon to be forgotten.

American Bittern

 

We ended the walk with a total of  11 Sora's calling, 3 visually, and 6 American Bitterns calling with two visually seen in flight - what a way to end the day. Needless to say - we will be back to this area next year.

We ended the our third day of the trip with a total species count of 96.