I just returned from three days at magee marsh where the weather was less than ideal with temperatures in the 80s & muggy. At least there was a breeze off the lake. 

In spite of the heat, the birding was still good & my trip list was 108. Just a few highlights here with the most important thing to announce is that with the new CDC guidelines, the boardwalk reopened Monday so my timing was perfect as I arrived Tuesday. It was amazing to be on the boardwalk with almost no people on Tuesday but word quickly got out & the birder density grew noticeably after Tuesday but still nowhere near festival numbers, thank goodness. 

If you are still worried about not wearing a mask when you’re in a crowd then u may want to stay off the boardwalk. I wore a mask if I was in a cluster of folks but other times, people were spread out & it was easy to social distance so I could take it off. I’m fully vaccinated/immune but I’m still careful in crowds.

Very few people are wearing masks on the boardwalk even when bunched together to view a special bird such as the amazingly cooperative Mourning Warbler that stayed right by the boardwalk for 2-3 hours! on Friday. That was certainly one of the highlights of the trip. The beautiful male seemed completely oblivious to the paparazzi & dozens of cameras pointed at it, some with flashes. It made no alarm calls, did not seem agitated but continued to feed continuously, gleaning branches/leaves & collecting bugs from leaf litter. Occasionally, it would perch briefly in the open, s/t in a little bit of sun. (Much oooing/ahhing when it did.) It even came up above eye level at one point—mind-boggling to me to see a Mourning Warbler that well.

There were at least two birds as I saw this male as well as one that I thought was a female in a different spot. It was exhibiting much more typical Morning Warbler behavior: skulking around in the leaves under branches in deep shade.

I was looking for a Yellow-billed Cuckoo I’d heard when I saw a bunch of feathers sticking out under a branch. Thinking it might be a night jar, I took a closer look & realized it was the tail end of an owl. I went around the other side & sure enough, it was a gray morph eastern screech-owl dozing right next to the trunk. Always a kick to find a bird on your own. 

I finished the trip with 20 species of warblers plus chat. Bay-breasted was the most numerous species but Maggies & Redstarts weren’t far behind. A few Canadas showing well. A female Blackpoll took me awhile to puzzle out. A few Blackpoll males around too. 

I saw both cuckoos well. Two sightings of Olive-sided FC. Nice looks at Philadelphia Vireo, Yellow-bellied & Alder FCs. I did not hear any reports of Connecticut or Kirtland’s while I was there. The hot weather definitely wasn’t optimal for migration but v enjoyable birding if hot.

Even though the boardwalk wasn’t super birdy, there were plenty of great Magee moments of just being two or 3 feet away from a warbler and just the joy of having the boardwalk open again after a year. One Classic Magee moment: a prothonotary warbler I was photographing shot past me so close I almost felt its wing brush my cheek.

Warblers 
Ovenbird
Northern waterthrush H
Black & white H
Prothonotary 
Tennessee
Nashville H
Mourning warbler
Common yellowthroat
American redstart
Northern Parula
Magnolia
Bay-breasted
Blackburnian
Yellow
Chestnut-sided
Blackpoll
Black-thr blue
Black-thr Green 
Canada
Wilson’s
Yellow breasted chat

Peggy Wang
Granville 
Sent from my iPhone
______________________________________________________________________

Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.


You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]