Lake Erie marshes 11-Mar-2007

... were able to spend several hours poking around Magee Marsh,
Ottawa, and Metzger Marsh. The early birds of spring are everywhere. Scads
of blackbirds are all over - countless Red-winged Blackbirds, Common
Grackles, Brown-headed Cowbirds, and many Rusty Blackbirds. Now is a good
time to watch for the much rarer Brewer's Blackbird mixed in with flocks
foraging in fields in that area.

We saw a few Fox Sparrows, and a true harbinger of spring, four or five Tree
Swallows were back and hawking for insects along the causeway road through
Magee Marsh.

The real action involves waterfowl right now. Many thousands of ducks, geese
and swans are wherever open water can be found and if you get the chance to
go up that way in the next week, do it. Lake Erie still has much ice, but
the open leads are filled with Greater and Lesser Scaup, Canvasbacks,
Redheads, Common Goldeneyes, and Common Mergansers.

Metzger Marsh is awesome now, with several big open water leads filled with
birds. There are hundreds of Tundra Swans, many Mallards, American Black
Ducks, Gadwall, American Wigeon, Northern Pintail, Green-winged Teal,
Ring-necked Ducks, Bufflehead, Hooded Mergansers, and the other species
listed above. In all, we had 21 species of waterfowl in the area, and
probably all can be found at Metzger right now. Metzger would also be a
prime place to keep an eye out for Eurasian Wigeon.

Jim McCormac