They say if you see a one-legged gull on Lake Erie, it’s rough seas ahead. So it was with a sense of foreboding that the following were captured at West Pier on Saturday (26 March 2022), at Presque Isle State Park:

Lots of debate at BirdingPI.com whether pictures of a physically-challenged gull are exploitative. Finally, decided it falls into the “things in nature” category, and is therefore journalistically relevant. If it makes folks feel better (yes, seeing a one-legged gull is distressing), the gull seemed to be doing just fine.

Anyway, the weather Saturday in Erie was generally poor. Overcast/cloudy, periodic rain and light snow, heavy wet snow later in the day. Cold and windy. Conditions at Presque Isle as expected – locally muddy or flooded in the wet spots, e.g., as reported last week.

Bird activity as expected – gulls, geese, ducks. Very little activity in the interior.

After some time at West Pier, and a brief stop at the Pine Tree Trail (no activity to speak of), time to hit Thompson Bay. Various ducks on site (e.g., Mergansers, Buffleheads, and Canvasbacks), plus a Belted Kingfisher flying about in the snow:

Next, on to Long Pond, but conditions were rough with the overcast, wind, and snow/rain. Happy to see a pair of Northern Shovelers still!

Thankfully, there was no boating involved, but Saturday night turned colder, with freezing rain, snow, and wind, which persisted into Sunday. Sunday was overcast, cold, windy, and snowy all day long – hints of sun and blue sky periodically, in between the whiteout and snow squalls. Quite a winter storm, although perhaps a bit “warmer” than it would have been back in January.

Bird activity very sporadic – Cardinals, Blue Jays, Robins, Crows, etc.

Have a nice week!

Squawk!

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Not laughing now, are you???

Now on to part 2 of BirdingPI.com’s occasional spotlight on Erie’s more common bird denizens. In this case, the lovely American Robin! Always lots (and lots) of Robins around during the winter-to-spring transition.

These pictures mostly taken near Thompson Bay at Presque Isle State Park over the last few weeks.

Following from Millcreek Twp during the last snow:

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Dateline: 20 March 2022.

Wow, so much going on in Erie, PA generally, and Presque Isle State Park in particular, don’t even know where to begin. BirdingPI.com “PI Bird Alert”(TM)? Weekend update? Wishes for a happy spring?

As a preview of sorts, the birding notables: (i) American Woodcock (WHAT???); (ii) Green-winged Teal (!); Red-breasted Merganser (also !)

But first, with spring here and the snow melted, time to get back to regular trail updates. Plus weather; always about the weather in Erie. Friday, seasonably warm, mostly sunny, spring-like, nice day; Saturday, rain, an hour-and-a-half of sunshine around 11 AM (and humid), then periodic rain the rest of the day; Sunday, colder, rain and sleet in the AM, windy. Eased up with hints of hazy sun and blue sky after noon, windy, still cold, mostly sunny by evening. Everything rather waterlogged, moderately brutal wind chill off Lake Erie. Lake Erie totally unfrozen.

Trails, locally muddy and flooded:

• Canoe Portage Trail: good shape
• Duck Pond Trail: locally very muddy
• Long Pond Trail, east trailhead: two large downed trees, but passable; swamp crossing easily passable
• Long Pond Trail, west trailhead: very muddy, flooded
• Sidewalk Trail, west trailhead: good shape
• Marsh Trail: flooded

• Sidewalk Trail, east trailhead: flooded and impassible at pond crossover
• Dead Pond Trail, west end: muddy and locally flooded
• Dead Pond Trail, east end: locally muddy
• Pine Tree Trail: good shape, except for downed tree by east trailhead
• Thompson Bay access trails: good shape
• B-Trail: flooded
• A-Trail: Muddy and slippery across swamp ‘bridge:’

Finally, on to some birds. First up, the back bay by Feather Observation Platform. Ducks on the bay, and a lovely Belted Kingfisher on the lagoon:

Of note, Red-breasted Mergansers on both the back bay and lake. Might have seem some previously, but this is the first confirmation via pictures. See ID hint below.

Next, time to hit the beach for some wind chill! By one of the rock breakwaters by Presque Isle Lighthouse (see above), startled a Red-breasted Merganser. Might have gotten better shots but for removing the lens cap, picking up the lens cap after dropping it by the water, turning on camera, focusing, etc. (Expect the unexpected!)

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Time for a BirdingPI.com “bird ID” moment(TM). Red-breasted Merganser, male. Note the tufts on the back of the head (downwards-facing arrow), distinct white spots on black field on shoulder (upwards-facing arrow), and dark-ish/red coloration on breast (right-facing arrow):

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Next up, Thompson Bay. Many Canada Geese out and about, including this one at Thompson Circle:

Traversing past the Thompson Bay swamp/pond by Access Trail #1 (https://birdingpi.com/872-2/), no better happy tiding of spring than amazing Green-winged Teals! Maybe a dozen in total.

Distinguishing feature from Common (Eurasian) Teals: distinctive vertical white stripe on the male’s shoulder.

The following is obscured and slightly out of focus, but shows where “green-winged” originates:

The Teals flew off north; time to head along the Duck Blind Trail towards the north end of the swamp/pond. Of all things, what flushes out of the thick underbrush but an American Woodcock! Barely out in the open for several seconds, but saw it long enough to note the buffy color and distinctively long bill, like a Snipe or Dowitcher. Heard its call soon thereafter, ID confirmed via Chirp-o-matic. (http://www.chirpomatic.com/ – no affiliation, although Chirp-o-matic is great).

Audio above is super noisy with the wind, but including it for full coverage + no pictures. Flushed the Woodcock again for a brief glimpse later, but if you can see the Woodcock, it’s seen you already and isn’t hanging around. (Time to set up camp off Thompson Circle!)

After seeing a Woodcock, pretty much the day is already an “A+,” poor weather notwithstanding. Even so, ‘icing on the cake’ to sneak up on a female (or juvenile?) Bufflehead on a log, preening and enjoying the afternoon sunshine:

Even bad Bufflehead video! (Sound is off since it was only wind noise.)

It’s like whipped-cream icing at this point (mmm….), but startled some American Coots on Thompson Bay, including a bit of water running:

Started off crummy, but wow, what a day, and what a great way to kick off spring! No better way to end the post than with another Song Sparrow, by Thompson Bay.

Dateline: 19 March 2022

Last day of winter 2022. A rainy day here in Erie, Pennsylvania, but better that than snow. (Understatement.)

Time to greet spring and wave goodbye to peak waterfowl migration season. There’s Tundra Swans, there’s ice – it’s Swan Luge Part 2!

[Editor’s note: Isn’t “Swan-a-thon” bad enough?]

Following are mostly from 5-6 (Saturday and Sunday) March 2022, on Thompson Bay at Presque Isle State Park:

Saturday, there was some sort of cavalcade/convention happening on Gull Point. And a lovely day for it. Hope those folks on the observation platform were paying attention to the weight limit – #balcony collapse.

Switching over to Sunday, 6 March 2022, still on Thompson Bay, but mostly looking north. Another lovely day.

On another day, on Long Pond:

Finally, Tundra Swans and Ring-billed Gulls on Marina Lake:

Hopeful to see more Tundra Swans this season, but no better way to end the Swan-a-thon than with more bad Swan video!

[Editor’s note: To hear the Swans, turn the sound way up and listen past the gulls. Pretty cool.]

Nothing newsworthy to report on here, just some decent digital photographs of one of our favorite Erie regulars, the lovely Golden-Crowned Kinglet. Taken recently along the Long Pond Trail at Presque Isle State Park.

Dateline: 13 March 2022

Now back to our regularly-scheduled programming (ahem), with the BirdingPI.com ‘Weekend Update.’

Snow Friday into Saturday, colder, then very windy and very cold into Sunday. Partially clear Sunday morning, remaining cold, turning overcast with lake-effect snow later in the day. Brutally cold Sunday on the back bay (e.g., looking at gulls at West Pier) with the wind chill, elsewhere just cold. As we’ve said, in Erie, if you think the cold weather’s over, think again.

Big news: first sighting of Northern Shovelers at Presque Isle State Park this season (for BirdingPI.com at least). Following are on Long Pond:

The problem with Northern Shovelers at Presque isle is the distance, e.g., they’re usually seen on the opposite side of the pond, bay, or whatever. With that in mind, seems like a good time for some photos from the BirdingPI.com trip to BiRDS field station (Tucson, Arizona) back in February. https://birdingpi.com/greetings-from-the-field-station/

Sweetwater Wetlands is sandwiched between Interstate 10 and the Santa Cruz River (usually dry) on the northwest side of Tucson. https://www.tucsonaz.gov/water/sweetwater-wetlands. No birding trip to Tucson is complete without at least one visit to Sweetwater, preferably multiple visits. It’s a tertiary wastewater treatment facility, meaning reclaimed wastewater is pumped into a series of ponds and marshes for final treatment plus establishing natural habitat. See https://www.epa.gov/wetlands/constructed-wetlands. Anyway, great place for seeing any number of local birds (stay turned for future posts), but in particular migratory waterfowl, sometimes relatively close. Like these amazingly beautiful Northern Shovelers (females are mostly brown, males are white/russet/iridescent head):

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Back to Erie for a final bit of exciting news from Sunday. In addition to the Shovelers, spotted what appears to be two Pied-billed Grebes on Long Pond. First shot on the left foreground, with Pintails (on left and right) and what might be American Black Ducks in the middle:

And two in the center/center-left, with Ring-necked Ducks on the right:

In this crop, note the distinctive white bill with black band:

I suppose you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here today?

Watch the following film reel very closely!

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Now you know the full extent of my powers!

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An expected – but still abrupt – change in weather in Erie, Pennsylvania, from “mostly spring-like” earlier in the week to plenty of cold and snow as of Saturday morning (12 March 2022). Current conditions: mostly cloudy, temperature of 22 deg F, not snowing currently but 5-6″ fresh snow on the ground from overnight. Not a good day for the outdoors, so time to catch up on some miscellaneous duck shots from the past couple weeks while waiting for Swan Luge Part 2.

First up, a species not covered much on BirdingPI.com previously, the lovely Gadwall. The following four views are from Long Pond at Presque Isle State Park:

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Time for a BirdingPI.com “Bird ID” moment, with reference to the following enlargement from the picture above of a male Gadwall. Note the distinctive white-above-black tail coverts (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_feather), dark bill, high forehead and generally square-ish head, patterned chest, and brown-with-white outline back feathers. Also patches of rufous on the wings as shown in the shots above.

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Next up, some decent shots of mostly Ring-necked Ducks in flight and takeoff, on Long Pond and Graveyard Pond (i.e., Lagoon boat launch):

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Still seeing Northern Pintails, like this on Long Pond; Pintails on the right, Mallards on the left:

Two shots from the back bay:

Now over to Lake Erie by Presque Isle Lighthouse, looking north:

And over to Thompson Bay for American Coots:

[Editor’s note: American Coots are not ducks.]

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Not enough ducks, you say? Don’t worry, plenty more where that came from!

How ’bout Buffleheads!

Buffleheads on right, Ring-necked Duck foreground left, Hooded Merganser background far left:

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Still not enough ducks? Tough crowd. Time to break out the big guns with some nice shots of Hooded Merganser:

Hooded Mergansers on Graveyard Pond – male on left with crest raised, male in middle with crest lowered, and female on right:

[Editor’s note: “…break out the big guns with some nice shots of Hooded Merganser…”???]

“Swan-athlon?” “Swan-alympics?” “Swan luge?” Ok, none of that makes sense. (Although, ‘Swan luge’ is pretty good…) What does make sense is how amazing Swans are, e.g., here in Erie, Pennsylvania recently, plenty of Tundra Swans!

There’s lots of amazing stuff in the “world of birds.” One example, Puffins off the coast of Scotland. Or Puffins off the coast of anywhere else for that matter. But what surely falls into that category (i.e., of amazing bird stuff) is a large flock of Tundra Swans seemingly materialize out of nowhere from the white, winter sky for a landing on Thompson Bay at Presque Isle State Park. Truly a sight to behold.

The content here doesn’t do it justice, but it’s a website and that’s what we do…

These are all on Thompson Bay, taken from the west-side beach by Access Trails #1 and 2 and therebetween.

Following two shots looking almost due north, towards Lake Erie (ice dunes in background right):

Remaining shots looking generally east towards the Gull Point area:

Again, doesn’t do it justice, but here’s a clipped shot of a flock of Tundra Swans coming in for a landing:

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Time for a BirdingPI.com “bird ID” moment. Tundra Swans and Trumpeter Swans look very similar, and the territory technically overlaps at Presque Isle State Park; although only slightly on the eastern side of the latter’s range.

Here’s a great summary of how to tell the difference: https://finwr.org/which-swan-is-which/.

In the picture below – an enlargement from these shots – the bird on the left has an almost straight line of black between its eyes. This is indicative of a Tundra Swan, whereas a Trumpeter Swan would have a notched/indented line of dark coloration instead. Also, on the bird on the right, there’s a yellow spot just to the left of the eye, and the eye is fairly distinct (i.e., mostly surrounded by white feathers). Both traits are characteristic of Tundra Swans.

In the following cropped view, the bird on the bottom has a partially pink-colored bill. This is indicative of a juvenile Tundra Swan.

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Back to more swans landing:

A couple groups of Tundra Swans landing was amazing enough. Almost as amazing was watching the newly-landed swans intermingle with those already on the ice. Perhaps it’s foolish to characterize it as a happy reunion, but that’s how it seemed – certainly, they were all very interested and animated for the get-together. Is there such a thing as swan joy? Maybe not, but hopefully so.

Finally for this installment, bad swan video:

Stay tuned for Swan-a-thon Part 2!