“The Biggest Week in American Birding” this year is May 5th thru May 15th. If you are unfamiliar with what that is, the easiest way to explain it is that when many of the species that are migrating North to Canada, they make a pit stop in Northwestern Ohio to rest up, eat some food, and prepare to make the long flight across Lake Erie. Most of the birds are so tired and hungry, and only care about food and rest. That means many of them just don’t care that you are there, and this allows for some of the best photo opportunities.

Most of the activity is in Magee Marsh, Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, and the surrounding areas.

Yesterday Eric Wright and I made the nearly 3 hour drive from Dayton to take advantage of the fair weather and sunny skies, and hopefully see some new species that we’ve never seen before. Oh, and getting good images of them, of course.

But let’s back up a few days first - not only is this a big week in Northwestern Ohio, back home in the greater Dayton area things are still hopping with many birds moving through and some stopping to stay the Spring and Summer months. I was out nearly every day this past week, getting my practice in for the upcoming trip and capturing some great images of the birds. And I added 4 more new birds to my life list.

Unfortunately, on Friday May 5th my D500 died while photographing in the early morning hours at Spring Valley Wildlife Area. It stopped working with the dreaded “ERR” message, and no amount of messing with it could get it to work. The shutter had failed at only about 230K clicks, which feels a little premature to me but I guess things happen. This was my last shot with the camera, which was also a new species for me, the Warbling Vireo.

This meant that there was no time to get it repaired, or source another D500 before heading up to Northwestern Ohio the next day. I had to make a Sophie’s Choice - whether to shoot my D850 and crop in, or my D7100 and deal with a low FPS rate and sometimes sketchy autofocus. I brought both of them with me but planned on just using the D850 unless something went wrong or the birds were just too far away and I needed the reach that the crop sensor of the D7100 gives me. My hope was that the D850 has plenty of pixels for cropping in, and its fast autofocus and better frame rate would help keep the # of “keepers” high. I honestly didn’t know what to expect, as I’ve nearly always shot a crop sensor camera for wildlife and have been spoiled by the D500 and how it just always got the job done.

We left Dayton at 4:15am and arrived at the first stop, the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, at 7:00am. Surprisingly we were the first car in the parking lot, and we immediately hit the perimeter walking trail. We weren’t disappointed. I added 2 new birds to my life count - the Purple Martin and Common Gallinule.

From there we decided to walk to Magee Marsh and brave the crowds at the boardwalk. Along the way we saw several birds, including 2 more new-to-me species - the White Crowned Sparrow and Chipping Sparrow.

Once we made it to the boardwalk at Magee, it was crowded but not as crowded as I expected it to be. Still there were areas where it was really jammed up, and that meant that something notable was there for you to see. There weren’t a great deal of warbler species there - I think that this was early in the Biggest Week and it will be much busier in the coming week. Still, I was able to get a new species there - the Black Throated Green Warbler.

After Magee we made the long walk back to the car, and a Trumpeter Swan showed off his take-off technique for us.

The next stop was Metzger Marsh Wildlife area, but by then it was after 12pm and the light was harsh, and the wind was high. Not a lot of opportunities there. We did spot several Osprey and Caspian Terns, but nothing that was shot-worthy.

After eating a BIG lunch at Tony Packo’s of MASH fame, we headed home. All in all it was a great day of bird and wildlife photography. And I came away with a newfound appreciation of the D850 as a wildlife camera. The D850 does its job well and offers plenty of pixels if cropping is needed. Its a lot like just a bigger, full frame version of the D500 - it just does its job well and let me concentrate on worrying about getting into position, getting good backgrounds, etc, etc. While I’m going to send the D500 out for repairs next week, I won’t hesitate to grab the D850 again if needed.

Thanks for reading,

Jeremy