Lakewood CBC

Today I joined Paula Lozano, Bob Finkelstein, Larry Rosche and Jim McCarty on the Lakewood Christmas Bird Count. Our team covered the Lake Erie lakefront between Rocky River and Edgewater Park. It was 60° Ferinheight when I left my house and by the time I arrived at our first destination, it dropped twenty degrees.

This is what the morning looked like; cold, cloudy and very windy. I believe at some point wind gusts were reaching 60mph which kept birds inactive. Through much perseverance we still had some birds including a decent movement of waterfowl. Two Long-tailed Ducks, three Surf Scoters, a juvenile Glaucous Gull and good numbers of Northern Pintail were among the highlights. According to Kenn Kaufman, there has recently been a large movement of pintails on Lake Erie and this is generally not common in mid-winter.

Here’s Bob, Paula and Jim towards the end of the day as we were finishing up the lakefront; of course this is when the weather improved…