Birding Fast and Furious
We slept in until 7:00 this morning, and it was a glorious feeling. Nine days of birding with Alex and Chris from Wildside Nature Tours is exhausting. However, we were successful in seeing all we had hoped for and more. First up, Magee Marsh in Ohio for the migrating warblers. Before the trip, I’d lallygagged and got through only half of the online warbler identification course I’d bought from Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, but it didn’t matter. Everyone along the boardwalk pointed out and named the birds we were seeing: prothonotary, Blackburnian, yellow, Tennessee, magnolia, etc. Having flown up from their winter homes in the southern hemisphere, the birds stop along the marsh to refuel before crossing Lake Erie and continuing their flights to Canada and the arctic. For us it was just a matter of standing and watching them, mostly at eye level. (Side note: Amish and Mennonite are big birders, hiring vans to drive them to Magee. Besides the large families, everyone over about 5 ye...