Shorebirds, including the fantastic Wilson's Snipe

 

I made a trip to the St. Marys Fish Hatchery last Wednesday, September 1, a place I have birded myriad times for many years. The hatchery is in western Auglaize County, Ohio, along the eastern shore of massive Grand Lake St. Marys. The hatchery is a magnet for migrant birds, and many a rarity has been seen here over the years. The site's reputation as a bird magnet goes way back. In 1970, Clarence Clark and James Sipe published a booklet, Birds of the Lake St. Marys Area. It's a gem, although tough to lay hands on now.

Hatchery staff obviously have fish production as their major goal, but as part of operations they routinely draw down impoundments. When draw-downs coincide with shorebird migration, birding can excel. The staff is birder-friendly, just stay out of the way of hatchery activities.

Several ponds have been recently lowered, including one of the large ones, and shorebirding has been interesting of late and should remain so for a while.

A Wilson's Snipe (Gallinago delicata) strikes a pose. This one was foraging out on the open mudflats; normally they are more reclusive and lurk in vegetation. And thus are easily overlooked. Dozens or even triple figures sometimes haunt wet meadows in migration, but remain largely out of view. Snipe come out of their shells on breeding grounds, where they engage in fantastic aerial courtship flights accompanied by a surreal winnowing sound produced by their tail feathers.

A beautiful little Semipalmated Plover (Charadrius semipalmatus) in its favored milieu, a rich mucky mudflat. Several of these elfin "killdeerlets" with the single band were present. Like most of the shorebirds - plovers and sandpipers - that appear in Ohio during migration, this species nests FAR to our north, across the upper reaches of the Canadian and Alaskan tundra regions. Like most of our plovers, Semipalmated Plover winters mostly along coastal zones: Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts, and coastal zone of much of Central and South America, as well as throughout the Caribbean.

A trio of our other "half-webbed" shorebird, the Semipalmated Sandpiper (Calidris pusilla). Semipalmated refers to the partial webbing between the toes. If you enlarge the Semipalmated Plover shot you can see this webbing. While the scientific epithet pusilla means "tiny", the Semipalmated Sandpiper is not the smallest of the five species of "peep" sandpipers that pass through Ohio. That honor goes to the Least Sandpiper (C. minutus). The latter was the most frequent of the peeps at the hatchery on this day.

I was especially pleased to encounter two Baird's Sandpipers (Calidris bairdii). This is one of our larger peeps, although we're not talking eagle-sized here. A hefty Baird's stretches the tape to about 7.5 inches in length and weighs little more than an ounce. But those wings! They span a whopping foot and half! You can see how the wingtips project beyond the tail in the photo. This is a bird meant to fly, and fly they do. Baird's Sandpiper is one of the world's great long-haul migrants. They breed in the northernmost reaches of the North American tundra. This incredible sandpiper winters along the Andes in Ecuador, all the way south to the southern tip of the world: Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. Some of these animals probably fly 9,000 miles - one way! - between breeding and wintering grounds. Rich mudflats where they can rest and refuel along this long journey are vital, but mudflat conservation for shorebirds seems to get little conservation attention in this region.

The Baird's Sandpiper is named for one of North America's great scientists and educators, Spencer Fullerton Baird. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution, and was widely regarded as one of the country's leading naturalists. He richly deserves having this bird named in his honor, as well as the Baird's Sparrow and at least 14 other animal species.

A quartet of Lesser Yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes) rests on a mat of desiccated Chara algae. This was the most common shorebird on this day - perhaps 150 yellowlegs were present. Only perhaps five of their rank were the much larger Greater Yellowlegs (T. melanoleuca), but they generally are greatly outnumbered by their lesser brethren.

A Lesser Yellowlegs shows off its namesake legs. In the olden days of unregulated market hunting (late 1800's, primarily), this species along with many other shorebirds was shot in large numbers. The Lesser Yellowlegs recovered well following establishment of wildlife conservation laws, but not all shorebirds did. The Eskimo Curlew, which may be extinct although there are glimmers of hope, is a sad case in point.

 Finally, here's a video of that Wilson's Snipe putting its LONG bill to work, probing the mire for invertebrate animals. Note its gait: bouncy coolness that verges on avian nerdiness. Maybe there should be a national Walk Like A Snipe Day, and we'd all have to mimic that walk everywhere we go. Probably take our minds off all the STUFF going on, temporarily.

Pipe Creek Wildlife Area: waders galore

The perimeter dike at Pipe Creek Wildlife Area separates the site's marshy impoundments from the open waters of Sandusky Bay. Click the photo to enlarge, and you'll see some of the giant rides at Cedar Point in the distance.

I found myself near Sandusky, Ohio yesterday morning, and took the opportunity to stop in at the always interesting but not heavily birded Pipe Creek Wildlife Area on the eastern edge of the city. Pipe Creek juts into what is essentially the easternmost edge of Sandusky Bay, and the much better known landmark of Cedar Point Amusement Park is just a stone's throw northwest of the wildlife area. Inveterate twitchers will recall Pipe Creek as the scene of Ohio's second Black-bellied Whistling-Duck record (read about that HERE), found by Larry Richardson almost exactly two years ago.

I was delighted to discover some superb shorebird habitat at Pipe Creek, and have marked the best impoundments on this Google Earth map. The red line is a suggested walking path for those interested in the most expedient route to the good stuff. I ended up walking the entire perimeter, heading counterclockwise, but didn't see a lot for my efforts until reaching the wetland units marked with the stickpins. The two impoundments on the easternmost side are largely grown up with marsh vegetation, but are still worth a look if you have time.

Pipe Creek does require some hoofing. You'll be in more a mile or more of walking, and you'll definitely want a scope along. But as long as the habitat remains as it currently is, the hike will be well worthwhile.

The 97-acre Pipe Creek Wildlife Area is entirely manmade; the pie-shaped wetland complex was constructed about 20 years ago as mitigation for wetlands that were destroyed elsewhere. Think what you may about wetland mitigation, but if well devised and placed properly, artificial wetlands can be very productive. Pipe Creek is an excellent example of a wetland mitigation site that has become a valuable stopover site for long distance migrant birds, and a raft of other flora and fauna.

This is the wetland marked as "2nd Best Flats" on the previous map. A lot of aquatic vegetation, such as that big bed of American lotus, Nelumbo lutea, are encroaching on the open shallows. Nonetheless, lots of shorebirds were foraging here and if you visit, you'll definitely want to scope out this unit.

Acres of mud and shallow water - manna from heaven for birders. I was thrilled to see the condition of the northwesternmost impoundment and as might be expected, it was full of birds. Shorebirds were evident everywhere, and the loudmouthed killdeer and yellowlegs vociferously announced my presence as soon as I wandered into view. Birds are coming and going constantly, and as Pipe Creek lies along the shore of Lake Erie, there will be lots of turnover among birds migrating through the region. Who knows what might pop up here in the coming weeks; maybe Ohio's second record of Red-necked Stint or something equally exciting.

While rarities are always great, these big mudflats are more important as migratory stopover and refueling sites for the regular cast of characters that have moved in large numbers through the Great Lakes since the last glacier. While I found no great rarities on this visit, I tallied plenty of common shorebirds, as follows:

Semipalmated Plover - 2
Killdeer - 55
Spotted Sandpiper - 2
Solitary Sandpiper - 4
Greater Yellowlegs  - 6
Lesser Yellowlegs - 95
Semipalmated Sandpiper - 14
Least Sandpiper - 60
Pectoral Sandpiper - 15
Stilt Sandpiper - 5
Short-billed Dowitcher - 25

The most conspicuous birds were herons. This wetland takes on a Floridian look, with all of the big white waders standing about.

Great Egrets were the most frequent of the herons; perhaps 50-60 were present. Second in terms of abundance was the Great Blue Heron; I saw maybe 30-35. Adding to the heron total was a Green Heron, and a Black-crowned Night-Heron that flushed from a tree.

This has been a boom year for Little Blue Herons in the north, and I was not surprised to find three of them at Pipe Creek, All were immature birds, such as the one above. Little Blues are white for their first year of life, and it can be easy to miss them if they hanging out in a crowd of white egrets. They especially resemble Snowy Egrets, but lack the prominent yellow feet and brighter yellow lores of that species, among other differences.

Little Blues tend to be somewhat sluggish and methodical in their hunting. A bird on the hunt in shallow water will frequently stir its foot in the substrate, spooking prey from the bottom. Animals flushed in this manner are quickly spotted and snapped up by the heron.

Twelve Snowy Egrets were present - a good number for one locale in Ohio. Even though this species is slightly larger than the Little Blue Heron, they usually appear a bit more diminutive to me. That impression may be due to the egret's habitat of keeping its neck hunched in an S-shape, and its slighter bill. Note the prominent yellow lores (skin at base of bill and around eye). The bird on the right has its foot raised, showing its striking golden "slipper". The Snowy Egrets are dwarfed by the Great Egret in the background.

Snowy Egrets tend to be hyperactive hunters, often dashing madly about and whipping their feet around in the mire. This video gives a taste of their frenetic ways, and offers a brief panorama of the Pipe Creek heron fest.