Tom Kashmer and Katie Andersen led a canoe trip down the sleepy Green Creek to its mouth at Muddy Creek Bay. This body in turn flows with the Sandusky River into Sandusky Bay. At the start, we found it tricky to manage the boats (I haven’t been in a canoe since I was a kid at summer camp) and see any birds. But soon we were picking up warblers and tanagers and other songbirds that we hadn’t seen yesterday.
The target bird for this trip was Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), and it was a slam dunk. We found a good dozen-plus birds, both adults and immatures, in the lowest reaches of Green Creek and over Muddy Creek Bay. But the big pleasant surprise was a quick flyover of three Trumpeter Swans (Cygnus buccinator). I’ve probably seen this bird before, but I’ve never been confident of an ID. For that matter, I’d like to have had another look at the three we saw today.
I love these old marker posts. This one along U.S. 20 is dated 1842 on its top, so it’s from the time before Lower Sandusky was renamed Fremont. I interpret it as signing 26 miles to Lower Sandusky (to the southeast) and [2]5 miles to Perrysburg (to the northwest). Most of the paint has weathered away. The only problem with my reading is that Lower Sandusky/Fremont is much closer than 26 miles at this point.