I visited Huffman Prairie late in the evening on June 18th.  Good birds
there, including Meadowlarks and Bobolinks aggressively defending their
nest sites and lots of Common Yellowthroats.  Other birders have
reported Grasshopper Sparrows this year as well.  Therefore, it was
disappointing to discover on the evening of June 21st that the entire
prairie was mowed.  Looking at the Species Accounts of Ohio Breeding
Birds (http://www.ohiobirds.org/obba2/pdfs/pdfselect.php), it is clear
that we are still firmly in the active nesting season for all of these
species, therefore this mowing operation most likely caused significant
fledgeling and egg mortality for the Bobolinks, Yellowthroats,
Meadowlarks and Grasshopper Sparrows out there.  This land is managed
by the United States Air Force, National Park Service and Nature
Conservancy.  I have written the Nature Conservancy to express my
concern about this.  We'll see where this leads.  Sorry for the rant
and negative post, but I couldn't hold in my disappointment about this
issue.

Good Birding,

Greg Spahr
Fairborn, OH
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