In the bowels of the Beach City Wilderness Area is a trail that takes you along the edge of a large crescent shaped pond, I'd say about a mile long from point to point. This is a beautiful stretch of marshland but not without its perils. Some of the meanest poison ivy I've ever seen grows in hedgerows down both sides of the trail and some of the hungriest skeeters you'd never want to meet spawn there too. Fortunately, braving these hazards yields rewards to the bold: a great place for both fishing and birding. My buddies and I caught a half dozen fish-Ohio Crappie here in one season along with plenty of Large Mouth Bass, Bluegill and Catfish. Being pretty new to serious birding, I've fished all the way down the trail but hadn't yet birded from end to end, which brings me to this morning. My hope was that I'd run into water fowl further down the trail then where I usually stop.
As it turns out I did spot a new bird, but not what I expected. I passed several avi on my walk: House Wrens and Swamp Sparrows nesting in a stand of dead trees, about a dozen or more Great Blue Herons, Canada Geese, Catbirds, Flycatchers, Robins, Northern Flickers, Indigo Buntings and Song Sparrows. Then, there at the end of the trail, an unexpected sight. Between it's yellow lower bill and bright black and white marked tail, its white belly and brown top, I had myself a Yellow-billed Cuckoo in my sights! On the return march along the trail I may have also spotted a Least Bittern. At a distance it could also have been a Green Heron. Nothing for it but to go back for another look another day.Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Identification, All About Birds - Cornell Lab of Ornithology
My, but the adventure continues - what might the fall migration turn up? We shall see!
View Morning Birding 7/21/2010 in a larger map
Photo Credits:
Yellow-billed Cuckoo - Mdf
No comments:
Post a Comment