Dateline: 24 April 2022
Solid rain Saturday morning, followed by cool-but-pleasant temps and ‘mostly sunny’ in the afternoon. Sunny and very warm Sunday, perhaps a high approaching 80 deg F, although 10-15 degrees cooler by the Lake Erie shoreline.
Presque Isle State Park trail update:
- A-Trail: muddy across the swampy part, but easily passable.
- B-Trail: flooded. Not recommended.
- Dead Pond Trail: localized flooding between the A Trail and the Sidewalk Trail; not recommended. Muddy in spots and localized flooding between the A Trail and B Trail. Good condition between the B Trail and Thompson Circle.
- Pine Tree Trail: good condition.
- Marsh Trail: passable with waterproof footwear, but overall still extremely muddy and flooded in spots. Not recommended.
- Sidewalk Trail: flooded but passable on the east trailhead end, otherwise in good condition. (Update: as of 1 May 2022, muddy but easily passable.)
- Ridge Trail: good condition east of Marsh Trail. West of Marsh Trail, muddy in spots.
- Long Pond Trail: east end – good condition; west end – very wet and muddy.
Based on BirdingPI.com staff reports at key woodland/interior locations, the songbird migration seems off to a good start. Tons of bird activity especially Saturday afternoon after the rain: sparrows (multiple species), Golden-crowned Kinglets and Ruby-crowned Kinglets, warblers (multiple sightings mostly of Yellow-rumped Warbler and Palm Warbler – hang out on the Ridge Trail near where it intersects the Sidewalk Trail at their east ends to see both), chickadee, Blue Jay, Northern Cardinal, and an unusual amount of thrush activity, e.g., Hermit Thrush.
So much activity this weekend, for now we’re focusing just on the co-winners for BirdingPI.com’s “best bird of the weekend.” First up, a Black-and-white Warbler spotted off the Dead Pond Trail, to the east of its junction with the A Trail. Might have seen a grand total of one of these at Presque Isle in 2021.
Partially blocked by branches, but still the shot of the weekend:
Seeing a Black-and-white Warbler was amazing. Even more amazing was a ‘not close’ encounter with a Great Horned Owl, if you can believe it. Fortunately, there’s proof!
As mentioned briefly in previous posts, there’s a swampy section of the A-Trail close to the main road, in a dip between adjacent sand ridges. Old growth woods (i.e., very tall trees) in this area, quite shady. While surveying the nearby birds (kinglets and Yellow-rumped Warblers, plus a pair of Mallards), a huge bird, apparently being chased by another bird, suddenly swooped down to land high up in a nearby treetop:
Lots of frantic jostling and repositioning of the camera equipment at this point.
It’s big, really big. It’s an owl, has horizontal striping on its breast, and big, tufted ears. There’s only one option at this point: a Great Horned Owl. A crazy “Wow!” moment.
Whatever was doing the chasing (couldn’t ever see it well, but it might have been the size of a small hawk or falcon) was still around, so the owl took off almost immediately, flying through the trees to the south towards Dead Pond and out of sight.
All these shots are partially obscured and a bit fuzzy, but there aren’t many situations more challenging than shooting more-or-less straight up into a dense thicket of tall trees in the shade. All Nikon D850 with the Tamron 150-600mm lens; all things considered, this kit did a decent job. (These shots have the brightness notched up and the shadow level turned way down, but otherwise are unmodified other than cropping.)