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July 7, 2007: Avid Atlasing
by Brad Sparks Ten of us, mostly old friends for
many years, set out on a mission to assist the Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas
once more, this time in Gallia and Lawrence counties, mostly centered
around the sprawling Crown City Wildlife Area. Outings in the
overheated days of June and early July are not the most popular, but
this time we went to advance a good cause. Nor are maps of this region
of state as accurate as one would like, but we were prepared to
improvise.
Our first stop on the way down was the site of earlier discoveries of yellow-crowned night-herons in Gallia County. They were not at the farm pond they'd been frequenting earlier, but the birding was good, with some young hawks to sort through. Along the road later we found two flocks of turkeys with poults, some bobwhites, and an apparent female northern harrier, a nifty Atlas find. We wound through many lovely natural surroundings on our way southeast, passing through metropolises such as Cadmus, Gallia, Arabia, and Lectra until we arrived in the mixture of scalped highlands with scattered islands of black locust and autumn olive bordered by steep densely-forested hillsides that constitute the huge Wildlife Area, a legacy of strip-mining of the past. The grasslands that are the principal replacement for these ravaged hilltops provided lots of Henslow's and grasshopper sparrows, plus a few field and song sparrows. Deers and coyotes, vultures and hawks were seen in these areas. In certain areas, dickcissels were fairly common, along with some bobwhites. We eventually located blue grosbeaks, signature species of this area, which were fairly silent, feeding young. We explored a long reach of road along a stream bordered by more natural deep woods. We added some warblers, vireos, and tanagers to the list, but birds were more silent than we'd hoped, though our eager observers found some interesting plants, along with millipedes and caterpillars, including an engaging kitten-looking skinny but otherwise in good health, that following us for almost a mile of our walk. Opinions about the latter varied from leaving it as food for coyotes to taking it home in a hug. She was cute. Eventually a compromise was reached, in which Doreene-the most vulnerable of us to the kitten's charms-would hold it in her lap until we found a nice-looking farm at which we could drop it off. We explored some more streamside woods, then walked a
backwoods road off the bottomlands. On the way, Doreene was able to
induce the kitten to adopt an old barn along the road-which
coincidentally sheltered a Jaguar (vehicle, a genuine rarity in this
venue)!-so we all felt we'd done our duty. We kept adding to our list
of species, eventually getting a number of blue grosbeaks as we
wandered the back roads along the grassy ridgetops. We had done this
site with atlasing in mind last year, and our most important task was
to verify certain species we'd not seen in breeding situations the
previous year, and we were able to confirm nesting for blue grosbeaks,
white-eyed vireos, turkeys, etc.-you'd have to ask regional OBBA
coordinator Brad Sparks for details, and we did pick up some neat new
species as possible breeders, such as northern harriers. By
mid-afternoon, the heat had grown truly oppressive. Avid Birders of
course do not mind such conditions, but the birds, less hardy, had
grown less vocal and active. We polled participants about a side-trip
to wait for a sighting of the Mississippi kites at the Logan golf
course on the way home, but the reaction was lukewarm; most really avid
folks had already gone to see them, and the most scrupulous of others,
such as Jeff, preferred to choose their own occasions. We were not all
that embarrassed to return to our rendezvous point three hours ahead of
sundown. Our trip list of 80 species follows:
For more information about the
Avid Birders please contact:
Page updated 7/10/07
© Columbus Audubon 2007 |
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