25 April 2024 Visiting Sheldon Marsh

We try to visit Sheldon Marsh annually in the spring. Besides the variety of birds, the is always a variety of wildlife and plants. This visit started with a pair of purple martins.

A male and female pair of bluebirds continued the blue spottings.

Ducks were dabbling.

Mergansers on the water

An egret and little green heron sharing a big branch.

This frog was a bit of a chonk.

Great Blue Heron

Beautiful Wood Duck

22 April 2020 Sheldon Marsh

Visiting Sheldon Marsh in the spring is an annual ritual nearing twenty years. We make a few stops on the way and maybe one or two after with the single goal of looking for birds. We were concerned about maintaining social distance at Sheldon Marsh as the paths are not that wide. The weather cooperated with cold and damp to scare off most of the visitors. We've added the nature preserve at Old Woman Creek to the annual spring celebration. It often yields good bird viewings.

Egrets were plentiful.  So was breeding plumage.

Snagging a meal

The arrival of a Great Blue Heron seemed to scatter the egrets.

The Great Blue also realized a meal was available.

We hadn't planned on snow when deciding to drive a rear-wheel drive sports car.

We moved to a newer section of the Nature Preserve and spotted our first eagle of the day.  We're spoiled and used to seeing multiple eagles on these outings.  Today we were happy to see this one.

We have learned there is only one suitable area to look for wood ducks at Sheldon Marsh.  Even if we a lucky and spot them, the are skittish and often move well beyond the camera lens and even our view.  I had a couple of chances for an image within the vegetation.  I got lucky and was able to capture an image of these beautiful birds.  

The birds weren't plentiful at Sheldon Marsh today, but there was a good variety and a fun walk for us.

Blue-Winged Teal

We don't see tundra swans very often to this was a treat for us.

Brown Creeper

We ended our day with a visit to Tofts for ice cream.  Most of the customers were handling social distancing well.  The seating area was off limits, but we rarely eat inside.

15 April 2019 Birding Along Lake Erie's Shore

It was time for our annual birding outing to Lake Erie's shore.  We stopped at Old Woman Creek, Nickel Plate Beach, Sheldon Marsh, and the creatively named East Sandusky Bay MetroPark.  Enjoy the images.

Old Woman Creek was all quiet on the waterfront today.  Our usual often include ducks and egrets with maybe an eagle.  Today there were multiple blue birds in the field by parking.

Nickel Plate Beach offered no sightings.  We stopped briefly before moving on to Sheldon Marsh.  Our first stop at the pond gave us a sighting of turtles plus a kingfisher.

It was a good day for ducks on the marsh.

Turtles doing what turtles do.

Egrets were on the marsh in breeding plumage.

On the Lake Erie side of the trail, it was odd to see the Kraig K, a commercial fishing boat riding close to the shore with nets out.

Our trip to Sheldon Marsh usually includes one or more eagle sightings.  We were both wondering if we would be shut out until we made our last stop at Erie Metroparks' East Sandusky Bay Park.  We spotted three.  I captured a weak image of one.

18 April 2018 Birding Around Sheldon Marsh

It was time for our annual spring visit to Sheldon Marsh and an assortment of other great birding locations we have visited over the years. Our first stop was Old Woman Creek where we have learned to expect seeing egrets and great blue herons with maybe a few feeding ducks as a bonus. That wasn't to be this year. We were treated to a number of tree swallows nesting near the parking area.

We also started what became a day of spotting yellow rumper warblers.

We also spotted a carolina wren and a few oven birds who received no photographic justice from me. The weather was wonderful at Nickel Plate Beach, but we struck out on both ducks and warblers today. It was time to move on to Sheldon Marsh. A flicker was bouncing from tree-to-tree in front of us as we walked the trail to turtle pond.

The turtles on turtle pond were happy together sunning on a log.

It continued to be a big day for spotting yellow rumped warblers.

Normally we see a bird or two while at the pond. Today there were birds flying everywhere. There were enough golden-crowned kinglets near the pond that they were a flight risk. We occasionally spot ducks in a small wetland as we walk the old road that runs beside Sawmill Creek. Today we were treated to an extended view of a pair of woods ducks. They are usually evasive when humans are near, but the female stayed visible on a log for some time.

Duck sighting opportunities in the marsh were plentiful.

It was unusual that we missed seeing any great blue herons on our visit, but plentiful great egrets made up for that with a few males sporting breeding plumage.

We usually don't see birds while looking down, but there were too many golden-crowned kinglets to count on the ground along the edge of the trail.

When we reached the Lake Erie side of the marsh area, we were hoping to spot an eagle as we have in the past. There were none here today, but we were able to enjoy mergansers on the water.