Cleveland’s waterfront was the hottest birding destination in the Midwest this past week, attracting dozens of birders from Ohio and beyond to the Lake Erie coastline.

The unquestionable stars of the show were a potentially unprecedented eight snowy owls located within a mile of each other, with four in the area of Whiskey Island and Edgewater Park, and another four in the traditional owl staging grounds at Burke Lakefront Airport. A ninth snowy showed up Monday on the breakwall at Fairport Harbor.

Veteran Northeast Ohio birder Larry Rosche said he had never before witnessed a confluence of so many snowies in a single day.

Anyone who has ever seen a Harry Potter movie should be familiar with Hedwig, the boy wizard’s pet snowy owl.

A tiny saw whet owl, with a mouse in its talons, peered out in curiousity from a pine tree at the Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve.

That connection to the silver screen might have explained the noticeable influx of casual birders at the out-of-the-way pier at the Edgewater Marina – the best viewing site for several of the snowies.

Jen Brumfield, Cleveland's top birding ambassador, posted news of the snowy owl invasion on the Facebook site of the Cleveland Metro Parks, where she is employed as a naturalist – creating what she dubbed "Snow Fever" and reaching dozens of people who otherwise might have missed the beautiful birds.

At least 13 snowy owls were reported in Ohio over the weekend, according to Jim McCormac of the Ohio Ornithological Society.

Even Jeff Gordon, president of the American Birding Association, weighed in with a special letter to birders, acknowledging the snowy invasion underway in the state and warning against potential conflicts with landowners, and the importance of maintaining a civil and ethical approach to the birds and their surroundings.

A red phalarope -- black and white in its winter plumage -- has been actively feeding on minnows in the calm waters of the Edgewater Marina in recent days.

While the snowies were clearly the main attraction of the week, another owl also garnered interest of more serious birders. Several saw whet owls, tiny winter visitors from Canada, have taken roost in the pines at the Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve. One was observed eating a newly captured mouse on Sunday in a tree close to the park’s headquarters.

In terms of sheer numbers, waterbirds were the primary magnets for most of the visiting birders to Cleveland. Interspersed among the thousands of Bonaparte’s gulls, horned grebes and red-breasted mergansers were some of the rarest and most-desirable of ducks and gulls found anywhere in the Great Lakes region.

They included eared and red-necked grebes, little gulls, long-tailed ducks and scoters, not to mention the brown pelican that has called Cleveland its homes for several months.

Although they have moved on to points unknown, previous rare visitors to the city’s lakefront included a black-legged kittiwake, a black-headed gull, a Sabine’s gull, an elegant tern, and a Northern gannet.

SIGHTINGS

Kent Miller and Ben Morrison found a Le Conte's sparrow, a Nelson's sparrow and a bobolink in the grassy field at the center of the Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve on Tuesday.

An ovenbird was observed foraging on the ground in Carolyn Holt’s East Cleveland backyard, reported Audrey Smith.

Judy Semroc watched a flock of eight sandhill cranes fly over her house in Uniontown on Wednesday.

BIRD NEWS

The Kirtland Bird Club will hold its monthly meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 4, at 7:30 p.m. at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. The featured speaker will be Andy Jones, the curator of ornithology and director of science at the museum, who will update members and guests on recent findings in ornithological research.