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Sandusky Bay was wholly covered by a thin veneer of ice up until the 1st of January. That morning, with the advent of a warm SW wind, the ice melted away with only a few narrow shelfs remaining along the Bay bridge by evening. At sunrise, multiple parties on the Gypsum CBC census, especially T. Bartlett's crew on Marblehead Peninsula, noted enormous numbers of Herring Gulls easily outnumbering Ring-billed Gulls 5:1 By day's end, that ratio had reversed as the Herring Gulls headed out into the lake. This is not the first time we have seen the phenomenon and helps explain why the Kellys Island count typically has more Herring Gull than Ring-billed Gull.
On the 1st, we tallied in excess of 72,000 gulls in the Sandusky Bay region, with a surprising concentration of 20,000+ Herring Gulls. I understand a very large number of gulls were also present Sunday for the Ottawa CBC although I only encountered 6-7000 Ring-billed Gulls in the Metzger area myself.
The recent chill has seen the complete icing of the Sandusky Bay again. As reported earlier, the outer Bay had a few open slivers and this is where the gulls were concentrated. Approximately 40,000 gulls were evident from Sandusky Harbor with a high proportion (25%) Herring Gull. Only two Lesser Black-backed Gulls were noted (both 3rd yr birds) but I was not expressly scoping gulls. Indeed, my main purpose at Sandusky Harbor was to check again on Turning Pt. Island. Yes, there were a few Double- crested cormorants remaining (18 seen), but as my previous visit was at dusk I wanted a better look. At 10:00 I was able to scope out 12 Black-crowned Night-Herons - all at the southernmost quarter of the island. There were 5 adults, and one streaked juvenile. The others were dusky TY birds. I was only working with my 20 yr old Bushnell Spacemaster at 22x so somebody's high-tech fluorite lens may reveal more. While regular to about Thanksgiving at this location, these are my first night-herons here in January.
Cedar Point Chausee - one Great Blue Heron along the chausee. With the embayment waters frozen, the productive site here becomes the waters immediately off the rip-rap lakeside. As has been the case for several years now, large numbers of puddle ducks had gathered including 600 Mallard and 60 American Black Duck. One pure flock of drake Greater Scaup hugging the shore numbered 120+. There were also 500+ Canada Geese. Well offshore were 100 Common Merganser.
Huron Harbor - the harbor and channel were still open and fully occupied by gulls. Census was hampered by the ever present juvenile Bald Eagle making a nuisance of itself to gull and observer alike, but after an hour I estimated 33,000 Ring-billed Gulls and 2500 Herring Gulls; a dramatic change in ratio here at the boundary waters of the Western and Central Basins. Only 15 Great Black-backed Gulls were present while on the 1st the Sandusky Bay count just fell short of 600.
A bit farther east, the Oberlin Beach overlook was quite revealing. A number of sizeable rafts to the east were principally made up of Common Goldeneye accompanied by bay ducks (broken down as 600+ goldeneye, 470 Red-breasted Merganser, and 420 scaup spp.). When I turned my attention back to the waters off the mouth of Old Woman Creek, I was not quite prepared for what I saw. There appx. a half mile from shore and stretching for 2 miles from just east of the mouth of the Huron River to just opposite my position at Oberlin Beach, was the largest raft of Red-breasted Mergansers I have seen in the winter period in Ohio. While 5 digit concentrations have been know into the 1st week of December, rarely are there concentrations of a 1000 or more into January. The occasions when this occurs seem to be these mild seasons and the location is always the same, off the mouth of the Old Woman Creek estuary. Even so, the 11,000 birds (surveyed and re-surveyed over a 30 minute period) was breath-taking; the various majority adult males in spectacular plumage. I continue to marvel at the exacting philopatry exhibited by the two large mergansers; the thousands of drake Commons within the Sandusky Bay west to the Maumee Bay, and the affinity of Red-breasteds for Huron east. To be sure a few of each intermix, and appx. 200 Common Mergs were visible from Oberlin Beach. But this phenomenon begs for appropriate scientific scrutiny.
On to Sherod Park and Vermilion. here I noted the shore ice was 150 meters wide and persistent for miles. All along its length was an apparently unbroken string of gulls resting. In the 200 meter stretch off Sherod, the ice held 1000+ Ring-billed Gulls, 75 Herring Gulls, and 8 Great Black-backed Gulls. Offshore were 28 Bufflehead, 45 Common Goldeneye, and 1 Hooded Merganser. Vermilion Harbor had at rest 3500 Ring-billed Gulls, 250+ Herring Gulls, and 28 Great Black-backed Gulls. Curiously, well offshore, a mile or more, was a steady stream of Red-breasted Mergansers eastward. For the 10 minutes I watched the flow, the rate of passage peaked at 300 birds/minute several times; ultimately tallying 2600. An obvious source might be the concentration noted earlier at Huron. However, I had only directly arrived from there and those birds had appeared quite at ease. For the movement to have originated from Huron, those birds would have had to begin moving the moment I left.
Lorain Harbor. Lorain was nothing like it was the morning before. Between 8:00 and 9:00 I sat parked at the "Hotwaters" of Lorain on Tuesday. The 35 mph wind out of the SW rocked the car so fiercely that binoculars were almost useless and scoping was out of the question. There were too many gulls anyway to really do any proper gulling. The greatest concentration of gulls I have seen since the mid-80's was present with so many at the hot waters that the distant breakwall was completely obscured from view. Only when an adult female Peregrine Falcon strafed the harbor did one get a full sense of the depth of birds. My estimate, which I have pared down to be conservative, amounts to . . .
Ring-billed Gulls - 110,000 Herring Gulls - 12,000 Bonaparte's Gull - 38,000 Great Black-backed Gull - 75 Glaucous Gull - 1 (a 1st winter in the water off the pier)
On Wednesday afternoon, perhaps only half that number were found within the harbor. Thousands of Bonaparte's Gulls, for example, were seen foraging in the SW winds, off the NE frontage of the Lorain impoundment. Waterfowl Wednesday within the Lorain Harbor docks area included 6 Lesser Scaup, 8 Gadwalls, 8 American Black Ducks, 13 Red-breasted Mergansers, and 80 Mallards. The adult Peregrine made another appearance at the hot waters as well.
There is a lot of detail in the above report, particularly as pertains to numbers, and I suspect some readers are wondering why bother. As a biologist interested in the basis for bird distribution this is second nature to me, but I believe it behooves every birder interested in the question of where one may best put their next effort in the field to appreciate that
It was no accident that I found night-herons where I had never seen them before in winter. I played out a hunch, betting on the angle of the sun, the severity of the wind chill, the direction of the wind, the time of day, and the moderate weather. The same ingredients I use to obtain the optimum counts for Great Blue Heron a East Harbor State Park in November and December. You could say I got lucky, and you may be right, which is why it will be necessary to play out that hunch for several more years. No matter, every time I bird I am playing out a hunch. That way every day is adventure, after all, I never know what to expect.
cheers
Vic Fazio
Shaker Hts., OH