The nice weather allowed for a better hike, but grounded fewer migrants at this woodland park SE of Columbus. I spent 2 hours hiking the extensive trail system looking for migrants and recently arrived residents, finding more of the latter. The forest here seems 7-10 days behind schedule, with many early SPring wildflowers still out and a paucity of bees & butterflies. Highlights included:
Raptors - acitve Coopers Hawk nest in the Ash-Maple picnic area
Woodpeckers - not a 7-species day, but lively nonetheless, with Pileated & sapsucker as highlights. I did have Red-headed, but it was earlier in the morning, migrating over Gahanna.
Flycatchers - still only Phoebes here, but 3 pairs making use of different picnci shelters as nest sites
Swallows - only resident Tree swallows swirling around nest boxes
Vireos - singing Yellow-throated & Blue-headed along the Beech-Maple trail
Thrushes - many territorial Wood Thrushes (8+) along the Beech-Maple trail, where 5-6 pairs usually nest
Kinglets - 7-8 Ruby-crowns, which was up from the prior day. No Golden-crowns.
Wrens - many (7-9) singing territorial House Wrens, but far fewer (1 singing) Carolina Wrens
Gnatcatchers - The common bird of the morning, with singing birds everywhere, perhaps 14-15 in all
Mimids - singing thrasher & catbirds at several locations, but no mockingbirds could be found
Warblers - still waiting. Yellow-rumps were widespread, although not abundant. Also had Black-thr.Green, Palm, Nashville (4+), and 2 N.Waterthrushes singing at different parts of the park. I also had singing Pine at a site in Gahanna, but clearly warblers are still low.
Grosbeaks & Buntings - 2 singing male Rose-br.Grosbeaks along the Beech-Maple trail, but this was down from a reported 7 at the Nature Center the prior day. No Buntings could be found despite being around appropriate edge habitat much of the morning.
Icterids - no orioles, but plenty of blackbirds, including high numbers of courting Brown-headed Cowbirds
Rob Thorn
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