On Saturday, January 13th,  the Ohio Young Birders Club, led by field trip leader Larry Rosche, representing our partner, the Kirtland Bird Club, visited Cleveland Lakefront State Park in Cuyahoga County.  Sixteen members and guests showed up on this overcast rainy cold day. While we searched Lake Erie for uncommon gulls, thousands of Red-breasted Mergansers were making a show landing and taking off. Amongst all of these red-breasteds, we found two Common Mergansers. The typical gulls were found - Herring, Ring-billed, Bonaparte's, and Great Black-backed at first.

We then walked toward the E55th Street Marina hoping to find a different gull. There in the marina were some American Coots, Mallards, and Canada Geese. On the way back we stopped on the bridge and searched through all of the gulls again. All of a sudden Larry shouts - ICELAND! All got good looks at this white-winged gull and after searching some more we found a GLAUCOUS GULL. By this time we were all cold and damp so we decided to head for our cars to warm up, have lunch and look for some Long-eared Owls at the Park Nature Center grounds. No luck with the owls so we headed to Sims Park in Euclid, Ohio. There we added Bufflehead, and Common Goldeneye and only found one scoter, a White-winged Scoter. that only a few of us saw.  We officially ended the field trip here, but a some of the group headed for the Eastlake Power Plant. With mostly Red-breasted Mergansers there we all looked forward to getting back into our warm cars for the trip home.

Some of the young birders got their life Glaucous and Iceland Gulls today. In spite of the weather it was a great trip - thank you Larry!