CARROLL TOWNSHIP, Ohio — The action started before we touched the boardwalk, as the early morning crowd walking across the gravel parking lot of Magee Marsh Wildlife Area on May 13 had their binoculars and cameras pointed up, murmuring amongst themselves as they quietly discussed their first sightings of the day.
Located on the southern Lake Erie shore of northwestern Ohio, Magee Marsh welcomes flocks of all kinds every spring, transforming into a renowned birding hotspot as more than 300 species make a stop there along their great migrations, offering spectators a rare front-row seat to some of nature’s most impressive journeys.
From late April to late May, bald eagles soar over the forested beach along Lake Erie while warblers — their flashes of yellow,
blue and orange — dart through the tree canopy nearby like brushstrokes from a painter’s palette come to life.
“So, what are we looking for?” I asked John Kolar, Geauga County Parks District chief naturalist, as he led a group of 20 birders on a van trip, scanning the trees with practiced focus. They had traveled two hours, sack lunches in tow, for a full day of birding organized by the parks district; by the end of their trip, they had identified 85 species.
“This bird,” he said, holding a picture from a book he was carrying. “The chestnut-sided warbler.”
Kolar explained that many of the birds passing through Magee Marsh are neotropical migrants — species that travel thousands of miles between breeding and wintering grounds. These birds, many of them insectivores, rely on areas like Magee Marsh to rest and refuel during their long journeys. Most of them nest in the boreal forests of Canada, where they’ll breed in the summer. And then in the fall, they’ll turn around and head south again.
Magee’s boardwalk winds through a tangle of brush and trees that serves as the last rest stop for hundreds of miles for a wide variety of songbirds on their way home this time of year, and Kolar was quick to express just how important a place it is.
“Bird populations worldwide are declining, so places like this are critical stopover habitat for the birds,” he said. “People come from all over the country and the world to come here to see them.”
A faint mist hung in the air. Kolar’s voice rose slightly in excitement as he spotted movement near the treetops. Among the group, some shuffled quietly to get a better look as he reminded them of the markings on the Cape May Warbler, its reddish cheeks, yellow belly, dark streaks and a distinctive white patch on its wing. Moments later came the thrill of discovery.
“Oh, I see him. I see him. Look at that. Oh my goodness,” he said.
“That’s the Cape May?” asked Tobe Schulman, a tour attendee.
“He’s right there. He’s a great looking one,” Kolar confirmed, watching as the bird fluttered from one branch to the next before vanishing again into the dense canopy. “Cloudy, rainy days, they’re going to be down lower. A lot of times these birds are way up.”
The group pressed slowly forward, pausing at regular intervals. Then came a burst of activity. Kolar identified a great crested flycatcher, pointing at a dead branch. They usually nest high up in the canopy. Tree swallows darted nearby, their iridescent feathers catching what little light made it through the clouds. Kolar looked around, smiling as the group paused once again.
“You can see one has some bluish on the back. The other one’s more drab, but it’s still a tree swallow. It’s hard to see the colors. They’re white with blue and green.”
And while the birds moved on quickly, the crowd lingered — heads tilted upward, eyes scanning the trees for what might come next.
For Schulman and her husband Stewart, their birding hobby began as something of a whim, sparked by their attendance on a Geauga Park District van trip they joined last year.
“He took to it,” she said of her husband. “The next thing you know, he went out and bought binoculars and a scope.”
“Thousands of dollars of optics later,” Stewart added.
Some on the boardwalk at Magee Marsh consider themselves lifelong birders; others, such as Schulman, are simply in love with nature.
“I just like being outside … walking and hiking. It’s a good way to be outdoors,” she said.
Bird flu risk?
While crowds and bird numbers at Magee Marsh appeared vigorous, recent headlines about avian influenza, or bird flu, have left some birders wondering whether the virus might quell the songbirds.
Laura Kearns, a wildlife biologist with the Ohio Division of Wildlife, offered some reassurance in a recent interview, saying the risk of avian flu to songbirds is relatively low. The virus is primarily carried by waterfowl. While avian flu does occasionally show up in songbirds, its prevalence is “much, much lower than in waterfowl,” she said.
Still, Kearns emphasized that the best thing the public can do is be observant.
“If you notice any sick or dead birds in large numbers, especially if they’re waterfowl, please report it to your state wildlife officials,” she said. “Detection by the public of any kind of unusual mortality events is really helpful.”
Conservation
When I asked which birds excite visitors the most, Kelly Schott, an education specialist at the Magee Marsh Visitor’s Center, listed off some far-away favorites. Among the most visually striking are the Blackburnian, Magnolia and Cape May warblers. Other frequently seen species include the black-throated green, black-throated blue and yellow warblers.
But for at least one species — the prothonotary warbler — Magee Marsh is home.
“They’re usually building their nest this time of year, and they actually build nests in some of the posts to the boardwalk that have rotted in the span… And so oftentimes the visitors can come up close and personal and see those prothonotaries, sometimes perched right on the railing. So it’s pretty neat,” Schott said.
More elusive species, such as the Connecticut, mourning and cerulean warblers, are rare treats. But this spring, Magee played host to an A-list celebrity.
“We did have a Kirtland’s warbler. It was here, and a lot of people got to see it. It was quite the spectacle,” Schott said.
With its bluish-grey upper body, dark streaks and bright yellow belly — an ensemble not unlike something Harry Styles might wear — the Kirtland’s warbler also boasts a remarkable conservation story worthy of a Hollywood screenplay. Schott recalled that when she was studying wildlife at Ohio State in the late 1980s, her professor warned that the bird would likely go extinct in her lifetime. The species nests exclusively in young jack pine forests, like those found in Michigan, which by then had all but vanished. Researchers eventually discovered that these trees need fire to regenerate (much like the immortal phoenix, from Greek mythology, rising again from the ashes). Controlled burns were introduced to restore the habitat, and over time, the warbler rebounded. Within the last five years, it was removed from the endangered species list.
“And so it’s still a relatively rare thing to get a Kirtland’s to migrate through and stop here at Magee,” Schott said. “But, you know, we probably do, oh, every few years.”
Threats to songbirds. One of the biggest threats to songbirds, Schott said, is light pollution. City lights from tall buildings can confuse migrating birds, leading to fatal collisions. Organizations in cities like Toledo and Cleveland are working to promote “lights out” programs during migration periods.
But even worse than lights, Schott said, are cats.
Fragmented breeding and wintering habitats are also a serious concern. Some species, such as purple martins, rely on very specific overwintering grounds. A loss of those habitats in places like Brazil can have ripple effects on bird populations across North America.
Despite our growing understanding of the challenges migratory birds face, certain aspects of their behavior — like why they migrate at night — remain something of a mystery.
“They’ve always done it that way. There are some things in science we don’t have answers for,” Schott said. “We don’t know whether they use, you know, a star pattern… You’ll get people that speculate, but we don’t really know why they migrate at night.”
When asked what she finds most inspiring about bird migration, Schott reflected on the astonishing scale of it all.
“If you start researching and learning about just a particular species, it’s fascinating when you think about how far they are flying and how little they weigh, right? Some of these birds are weighing an ounce, and they’re going these long distances,” she said, a journey she finds both massive and awe-inspiring. “Every year, I learn something new that I didn’t know before,” she added.
She added that the people drawn to Magee are part of what makes it all special.
Full of surprises
Suzan George, president of the nonprofit Friends of Magee Marsh, knows the boardwalk well — and the people who walk it.
“It’s always fun to come out and see what’s going on,” she said. “I think you’ll find the public is very pleasant and accommodating. If you don’t know what something is, you can say, ‘Now what are you spotting?’ They’re happy to share.”
George said she is always delighted by a bit of bird drama.
“There was one season I was out here and there was a cavity in a tree down the way. A prothonotary warbler was carrying nesting material in, and a house wren was flying in and carrying it out. They were competing on who was going to get this cavity for their nest. You see stuff like that here. That is just fun to stand and watch.”
George said even if birds aren’t your main interest, Magee Marsh still has plenty to offer.
“If you enjoy wildlife and nature, there are some very cool happenings here,” she said. “I enjoy even just walking by myself here and stopping when I want. I find myself taking pictures of the wildflowers and even some of the plants I think are beautiful, too. I saw mushrooms that were really cool. And even just some of the shots of the water.”
And in the summer, the marsh transforms again.
“In July, Magee Marsh will be full of wildflowers,” she said. “This whole landscape here will be milkweed. And we will have hundreds of monarch butterflies. And so there’s always something going on.”
