The Biggest Week in American Birding Day 2

It's not just warblers here at Biggest Week. There's a lot to see in some of these marshes and these other hotspots. We're in northern Ohio for the biggest week in American birding. On our first day at this world-renowned festival, we got our first looks at the famous McGee Marsh Boardwalk, explored some other wildlife areas, and experienced some of the activities at the Maumee Bay Lodge. Today, we're back at McGee Marsh for a Young Birders Walk. We're back at the boardwalk for the Young Birders Walk, led by our friend Tyler. And it is a lot more crowded today. It's a Saturday. So there's not as much parking. We did find a spot. But it's pretty crazy, pretty windy. We're going to head to the boardwalk and start birding with some of those young birders. Young Birders Walks are programs that are part of the festival itinerary and led by festival guides. The goal is to get more young people interested in birds and birding, while allowing them to meet each other and connect. With a solid group formed by the entrance to the boardwalk, we began our trek. We quickly found a black and white warbler, as well as a rusty blackbird. Both birds offered nice looks, and everyone in the group got to see them. While searching for birds and talking to the guides and participants, we learned that this walk has been a festival staple for years. This is my ninth year guiding this exact walk. And what's so cool about it is seeing kids who are my age right now, seeing their moms and dads driving them out here, it's kind of nostalgic in a way, seeing how these kids did the same thing I did. Has it grown since you started? The OIBC chapters? Yeah, yeah. It's grown throughout the state. Up to seven chapters now in the OIBC. It's really something special. And then everyone kind of rejoins up here every year. Additionally, a lot of the young birders had a lot of knowledge and experiences for being so young. Anything around here would be a life bird for you right now? Not that I can think of right now. So you're a pretty experienced birder? Pretty experienced birder. I absolutely love it. I got into it about five issues ago and haven't looked back since. What's your life list at? 542. White Wagtail is the most recent. Wow. What's your life list at? Not anywhere near that. He's too embarrassed to say it out loud. We continued on, finding tree swallows, orioles, and other common species, when a bird popped up that got many of the birders excited. Gotcha, Gracie? Life bird? Let's go! How's it feel? Feels good. First life bird of the day. You feel like a new man? Not quite. After seeing the grey-cheeked thrush, we looped back around on the boardwalk and headed back. We did see a few more species along the way. At the end of the walk, we caught up with some of the young birders to see what they thought of the experience. Final thoughts over here on the boardwalk? Oh, it was pretty good. A lot of good birds. Trying to think, what were some of the good ones? The grey-cheeked? Yeah, grey-cheeked, that was good. A couple people got that as a life bird. Rusty blackbird, it was cool to see that plumage kind of late. Cool. What's next on the trip itinerary for you? Like, at the biggest week? Yeah. I don't know, probably check out the estuary trail, maybe Howard Marsh. This was great, it was a great group of students, a lot of good birds, and got some life birds for the students, so couldn't have been better. Do you think it's a real benefit having young birders specific events here? Absolutely, giving young birders a chance to meet other like-minded students is a great opportunity, and there's not that many programs offered like that, so when you have them joining programs that are very adult-heavy, they do great, they learn a lot, but having an outlet to just get to know and have fun with other kids your age is certainly beneficial. Just got done with the young birders walk, I think everyone had a good time. It was cool to see so many young birders all in the same place, helping each other get on, different species. And now I think we're going to maybe get some lunch, maybe check out some more spots around here, and we'll see what happens the rest of the day. We don't have a ton of plans yet. Instead of leaving, we decided to stick around for a bit. Decided to switch over to the other side of the boardwalk, but it is raining a little. We're just going to be here probably briefly to see if there's anything interesting on this side, and then move on to somewhere else. Decided to see if we can find some things we didn't see this morning. It was a little slow. The boardwalk traffic has definitely increased. There's a lot more people, but you can find open spots on the boardwalk, and it really varies what people are looking at. Sometimes people will be like, what are you looking at? I'm like, I don't know. Then you can help them figure it out, or it will be a kinglet. So there's a lot of different levels of people on the boardwalk, which also makes it kind of fun. Just like the prior day when we were on the boardwalk, the rain started dripping from the sky, but the birds were too good for us to leave. Finally got some nice views of a more cooperative black-throated blue warbler. Probably one of my top five most beautiful warblers of the east. Just such a striking color, and everyone here on the boardwalk is loving it right now. Had some nice experiences with some warblers here today. Got a nice look at a Cape May warbler and a yellow-rumped warbler that is often overlooked, but is actually a pretty beautiful species. Eastern Screech Owl was out in the open. Well, slightly covered, but visible enough for everyone to see it who's walking by. So that's the awesome bird. Just got a warbler that I consider to be one of my favorites, the black-burnian warbler. They love to be up in trees, and this one was no exception. So it was way up there. Had to look from below it, but still got to see it, which is nice. Definitely understand how people can, and some do, spend basically the majority of time on the boardwalk. It's much longer than I thought it would be, and you can find open spaces where nobody is. If there is a rare bird or just a really pretty bird hanging out, it's probably going to be a big group, like we had the prothonotary come really close. And what I found is that sometimes people gather for something they don't know what it is. If it's more beginners or something rare you never really know, so it helps to go and ask, and maybe you can help them with an ID, or see a cool rare bird. It's kind of like these groups form, they dissipate, and then they form again later down the line. With so many birds on the McGee Marsh boardwalk, we encountered a wide variety of birders, with some having been in the hobby for years, and others just getting started. So we started last year, so we've been going about a year, but this is our first major event like this, and it's just crazy. Everybody's been great on the boardwalk. You've got people next to you, you don't know what you're looking at. People come up and they tell you what it is. It's been awesome. It's really been nice for newer people because, I don't know, people are helping. So people have been great, and there's stuff everywhere. Every few feet there's another bird to stare at, so it's been really cool. What's your favorite thing you've found so far? Well, let's see, I don't have a lot on my warbler list, so there's been a lot of warblers. The magnolia was awesome to see. The scarlet tanager was awesome to see. We first walked in right out in the parking lot through the Blackburnians, so it was cool. That's awesome. Would you recommend people come to the festival here? Oh, completely and totally. I'm going to be bringing a group next year. Yeah, we're talking already. We've been texting our friends back home already, so we're from Buffalo, New York area. Oh, so you're a little ways away. That's cool. Yeah, so we've been talking to friends back home and telling them about it, and we're talking about renting a house next year and bringing a group down. That's been great. It really has been. I can't believe the amount of people. It's really cool, but everybody's done great. It's been fun. While we were talking to Dave, we had an amazing experience with one of the stars of the boardwalk. So he's that new favorite warbler now? Yeah. I'll never say the name right, but that one's pretty cool. That was a pretty great experience with that bird. It was feet away from us. It was amazing. I just had an insane experience with a Prothonotary warbler. It just perched up on these sticks right by the boardwalk, and everybody got to see it really clear, hear it sing. Really, really cool. It was beautiful. I went to grab something from the car and came back and caught it basically coming up almost right by the boardwalk railing, and there was a lady right there, and then it flew down that way. So, great place for a Prothonotary. Some people think maybe they're nesting around here. It's still calm, so we're probably going to head over there right now. While we would have loved to stay on the boardwalk longer, the rain started to pour, and with our equipment getting wet, it was time to make a hasty retreat. So that was day two of two, getting drenched at the boardwalk. I think we are now officially going to get some food, even though we said we were going to do it several times. Now we actually are, and we'll see what the weather does after that because that's probably going to determine our next steps. I'm feeling good. We saw a lot of cool warblers today. I think the highlights for me was seeing the young birders group, seeing some of them get some lifers, and then the Prothonotary warbler looks because that was such a cooperative bird. So many people got amazing looks at that one. And then Black Burning, we saw. So we're checking off some warblers we haven't seen, but there's still some that we have yet to get, like Magnolia. I don't think we've had Tennessee Orange Crown, maybe. Maybe we did. I think we had an Orange Crown. But there's a couple left to check off, so we'll keep working on that as the week goes by. Boardwalk gets slippery when it gets wet, so you want to be careful if it starts raining, but I assume most people are exiting the boardwalk right now. We decided to eat at a place that was a staple of the region and recommended by some of the people we met. We're at Barnside Creamery. We just got food. It finally stopped raining, so that's good. We're going to do a review of the food and the ice cream. This place was recommended to us by a young birder that we were on a tour with. Actually, I think multiple people recommended it. It's a hot, hot place in town. Let's start with the nachos that I got. It's really good, actually. Really? Yeah, like, on a nacho, I'd give that an 8.2. Wow. But the problem is there's hardly any of them. You could use much more than this. Now let's go right to the ice cream. I got a S'mores Sundae. Looks delicious. It's definitely good. I would give that... I think we need more of it. One bite, everybody knows the rules. My whipped cream is about to escape. 7.5. What was that? A S'mores Sundae? S'mores Sundae, 7.5. It looks like a cheesecake type deal. It does, but it's not. Barnside Creamery, we got pulled pork sandwich, Rocky Road ice cream. This is going to be difficult to eat, I can tell. It's good. I feel like it tastes very similar to other pulled pork sandwiches I have. I feel like on a scale of how unique it is, it's not very unique, but it's solid. I'd give it a 6.0 out of 10 on the full food scale. On a pulled pork scale, I think I'd give it an 8.0. I like a little more solid of a bun where things aren't getting as soggy. I think I'd like it a little less sugary, but that's just my personal preference. Let's go for the Rocky Road. A little disheveled here. Not sure what happened. Things got a little out of hand. It's got some of these almonds that are just kind of on top. I haven't been eating a lot of sugar, so I feel like any kind of ice cream is going to taste amazing. It is really good. Trying to figure out if it's custard or regular ice cream. Feels like it's custard, maybe. Ice cream is very good. It's actually not super sweet, which I kind of appreciate. I'm going, did you go 7.5 on the ice cream? I'm going 7.5 on the ice cream. It's good. I think after you bird in McGee Marsh, stop by here, pick up some food, get some ice cream, get some nachos, and then continue on your birding trip. Important thing to know, you can't use a credit card to pay, so you're going to have to use cash. They also had some other signage up, too, which kind of had specific ways that you're supposed to order and stuff. I don't know, it's right by a freeway or a highway, too, so it's kind of loud. So the food's pretty good. There are definitely some cons to the place, though. Just wanted to throw that out there, a unique experience, I would say. I feel like you have to visit, though. With the sun coming out, we decided to go to a new spot, Howard Marsh Metro Park. After the rain stopped, we decided to go to Howard Marsh. Some people earlier in the week at a coffee shop actually told us they had some blackneck stilts and other shorebirds here. We haven't had a lot of shorebirds yet, so we're going to see if we can pick up some new state birds here at Howard Marsh. On the road in, we had a new bird for the state. Eastern kingbird, that is a first of state bird for me, actually. So state bird for Ohio, eastern kingbird, that's pretty cool. When we made it to the metro park, we realized that it was quite expansive, and much like everywhere else in the area, laid out the welcome mats for festival goers. I will say, it was really nice seeing all the welcome birder stuff. You feel like the city and the festival are all kind of working together, and that's great to see. We do feel very welcomed here in Ohio. We started exploring the marsh, immediately finding shorebirds. There's a flock of about 70 dunlin out here. One cool thing about them is that in their breeding plumage, they have black on their stomach. And so if you see the black on that stomach, it's probably a dunlin. They're normally in groups of more than one. You'll see at least a couple of them in there. In this case, it's a larger group, but that's a good thing to look for. Sometimes other birds can get mud on their stomachs. You've got to be careful, but these have the black, and they are all dunlin. We also found another unique species of shorebird very at home in these sorts of freshwater marshes. The black-necked stilt. The two birds we saw walked extremely close to us, offering some of the best views we had ever had. That was by far the most cooperative black-necked stilt pair I've ever been around. They were hanging out super close, doing a little calling. And it's not just warblers here at Biggest Week. There's a lot to see in some of these marshes and these other hot spots. Not just McGee Marsh. Next, we walked on one of the boardwalks that went right over some mudflats and water. Here, we found different swallow species and another shorebird. Just picked up some leaf sandpipers. They're very tiny shorebirds, and they have yellow legs. Hard to see leg color sometimes because of them getting covered in mud. So sometimes it makes the legs look dark. But I was saying, this boardwalk is really nice because you can look down into the marsh. And that's something you're not really afforded in most areas because you have to look from the outside. So Ohio does seem to love the boardwalk trail. After wandering around the marsh longer and picking up several more species to add to our list, we had felt like we had thoroughly explored the metro park and headed out. We just got done walking around the marsh, and I thought it was a really cool place to bird. Glad that we decided to come here. Got some excellent looks at some of the species that are usually kind of tough to see, such as the black-necked stilt. So really glad that we decided to make this stop and would recommend it to somebody else in the area to go birding. Yeah, we had great looks at the black-necked stilts. And we had a couple common terns fly by. That was kind of cool. The wee sandpipers, the dunlin. So great stop. Some things didn't ever come out into the open, like the common gallinules and the sorrows. They remained kind of hidden. But it was a really nice stop, and I'm glad we made the trip out. As we left, we got word that a flock of ibises was being seen in a field just a short drive from where we were. We arrived to many people viewing these interesting birds. Additionally, we picked up a few more new birds for the trip as well that were also in the area. Random little bird gold mine here. Got a northern mockingbird. Got a peregrine falcon out there. And then a bunch of ibises that we're still debating whether they're glossy or not glossy. Happy with your ibises? Yeah, they're really distant, but it looks like most are glossy. We have that. It's a cool bird for the state. Mockingbird was neat too. We were just talking about if we were going to see one. Before going back to the hotel, we had one more place to go as the sun was starting to set. So we got a tip on a barn owl spot, and so we think we know where the owl's kind of roosting. So we're just going to wait and see if it comes out when it's still light so that Ryan can get it for his lifer. Barn owl's a species that I've gotten tips on before, and people have said, oh, you can get them here, but they've always been elusive. I've never seen one. So this would be pretty cool to get a lifer here. Sadly, the barn owl never made an appearance, but we did hear a woodcock before officially ending day two. Day two of our time in Ohio was all about the actual birding for us, as we got to see a lot of new species for the state, and had a good time exploring some of the places in northern Ohio. Be on the lookout for our next video on the biggest week in American birding. And as always, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. I'm Badgerland Birding.