2 Could 2024
Final weekend the headline within the Toledo Blade learn: Greatest Week 80,000 Birders Return on Friday. The Greatest Week in American Birding begins tomorrow at Maumee Bay Lodge in northwestern Ohio, drawing birders from all over the world to see hundreds of thousands of migrating birds, particularly warblers.
Usually I’d be a kind of 80,000 folks however this yr I didn’t have time for a visit subsequent week so I’m right here at Magee Marsh proper now, 30 April to three Could. As your advance scout I can inform you that the state of affairs is totally different within the week earlier than.
- There are surprisingly few folks right here. Few on the boardwalk, even fewer at Maumee Bay Lodge.
- Distributors for the pageant began arriving yesterday.
- There aren’t many warblers. Although the climate has been fairly heat, in a single day winds have been from the north, blowing off the lake. I’ve seen a small number of warblers however solely single birds and it takes effort to search out them.
- I miss the advantages of birding in a crowd. To seek out actually good birds, I search for a crowd with their binoculars up they usually assist discover the hen.
- With so few birds (relative to the Greatest Week), a ruby-crowned kinglet drew lots of consideration.
- This yr: Solely a brief loop of the Maumee Bay Lodge Nature Heart boardwalk is open. The bulk is closed resulting from storm harm in June 2023 (proven right here).
So the very best time to see warblers in northwestern Ohio actually is through the Greatest Week.
In the meantime, in Pittsburgh migration is forward of schedule and has been fairly good. I haven’t seen any of the birds proven within the emblem above in Ohio this week, however I’ve already seen the orange ones in southwestern PA — an American redstart and a Blackburnian warbler.
If I wish to see the opposite two species — the Kirtland’s and mourning warblers — the very best place would be the Magee Marsh Boardwalk through the Greatest Week.
(credit are within the captions)
