The birding was very good at Conneaut today, especially in the morning. I got there at 8:00 AM. Lots of activity for the first couple hours, then it slowed down around 10:00 AM. I stayed until 11:00 AM, then went over to N. Kingsville and Ashtabula for a few hours. I returned to Conneaut at 2:30 PM and spent another hour there before heading for home. Driving out to the outer spit at Conneaut was tricky but doable with care, thanks to the overnight rains packing the soft sand down some. There is lots of organic detritus washed up on the spit, which always helps attract and hold birds there. Highlights were: 6 BRANT (stayed about half an hour in early AM before heading west), 14 gadwalls, 18 red-breasted mergansers, 100 double-crested cormorants, black-crowned night-heron, bald eagle, 2 peregrine falcons ( a juv. in the morning, then an adult in the afternoon), 2 black-bellied plovers, Am. golden-plover, 4 greater yellowlegs, 10 sanderlings,
2 white-rumped sandpipers, pectoral sandpiper, 19 dunlins, 100 Bonaparte's gulls, 2 LITTLE GULLS (adult & 2nd-winter birds), 2 great black-backed gulls, common tern, 6 Forster's terns, belted kingfisher, and white-crowned sparrow (by the lagoon). I expected to see some loons, but didn't see even one. The howling winds and rains may have had something to do with that. I was about as cold as I've ever been in October there, even staying in the car with only one window open. In North Kingsville, I saw 2 bald eagles while driving the lakefront on Rte. 531. In Ashtabula, I checked the big retention pond beside the Ashtabula Mall and also Lake Shore Park. Found there were red-breasted merganser, 3 ruddy ducks, 8 pied-billed grebes, cormorants, 5 great blue herons, 4 more bald eagles, and Am. coot. There were few gulls at Ashtabula, though. Craig Holt, Lowellville
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