Question: Where are these Avocets going?

Three of seven American Avocets (hanging out with Ring-billed Gulls) at the inland beach at Maumee Bay State Park, Ohio, on April 15, 2012. Photo by Kenn Kaufman.

Mid-April:  Yesterday while Ethan Kistler and I were on the hawk tower at Magee, he got a call from Sherrie Duris, who was over at Maumee Bay -- looking at 7 American Avocets.  These snazzy relatives of the sandpipers are generally rare in Ohio, so we couldn't resist running over to the park to look at them.

It's quite possible to go through a year of birding in Ohio without seeing any avocets at all.  But when they're seen -- and especially when they're seen in spring, I think -- they often occur in flocks, not as singles. 

This is mainly a western species.  It can be abundant on the Pacific Coast and on wetlands in the interior of the west.  It may nest as far east as the Dakotas and western Minnesota, and fairly small numbers spend the winter as far east as Florida and South Carolina.  But when I draw a line from any point in the winter range to any point in the breeding range, Ohio is not along that line.  American Avocets that show up here are not taking the most direct route.  Are they just wind-drifted off course, in flocks, every spring?  Or is there something else going on? 

Insight: The social snipe

Early April: Wilson's Snipes are arriving in n. Ohio in good numbers, although they're not up to peak passage yet.  I'm seeing them in several areas with shallow water, including the flooded fields down on Benton-Carroll Road and a couple of the impoundments at the edge of Ottawa NWR. 

I saw my first Wilson's Snipes when I was ten years old, and I've probably seen thousands, even tens of thousands, at all times of year.  So I thought I knew the species well.  But I'd always thought of it as a solitary bird.  Walking into a marsh where snipes were common, I would see them flush singly and fly off as individuals, each on its own zigzag trajectory.  While many members of the sandpiper / snipe family are quite gregarious, forming large flocks in migration and winter, I had never considered Wilson's Snipe to be sociable at all.

Here in n.w. Ohio, where I've lived for almost 7 years, I've often seen groups of Wilson's Snipes foraging together during migration.  Gradually it's dawning on me that they will, in fact, form flocks.  Today at Ottawa NWR, a harrier made a low pass over a marshy impoundment, and a flock of 13 snipes flew out together, circled around several times, and then returned and landed together in the marsh.  No question, they were acting as a tight, cohesive flock.  So at least during migration, in Ohio, it's not accurate for me to classify them as solitary birds.