In my last post, I might have sounded like I was complaining about the weather; well I was! And when I saw there was no chance in the weather changing, I cut my Ohio time short and moved on despite knowing the whole east coast of the USA was with lousy weather. I decided to find a place where I could hang out for a day and observe birds in between raindrops! What was funny though (because one must laugh about it all, which I did find myself doing), by the end of the day I had rain, sleet and hail to contend with as I looked for birds. Then if I wanted a photo of the bird, I waited for it to fly off or take its head out from under its feathers! Five hours later I saw 3 new birds for my life list and about 20 other species of birds. Interesting and challenging day!

I was at Presque Isle State Park, Erie, Pennsylvania. This park is a peninsula on Lake Erie and quite a place for birds to flyover or land in any of its lakes and wetlands. I drove the peninsula a couple of times because I was looking for a particular bird which unfortunately I never found: red-throated loon. A couple of guys I spoke with had seen one! I had no luck finding it, but my 3 new birds for my life list: red-breasted merganser, common loon, and greater scaup. Photos are below. 

The common loon is only new for my life list started a couple of years ago with eBird. I first heard and saw the common loon when canoeing to an island in Stillwater Reservoir in New York State’s Adirondack Park in the 1970’s. Their eerie call at night will always be remembered. I had also seen a loon nesting at a lake about 4 miles from where my Adirondack place was, so seeing these loons in open water was a treat!

I will keep this state park in mind for future visits. Here are some photos from there when the weather cooperated for a few minutes.