I scouted the Blacklick Creek bikepath today and ran into a good diversity of sparrows, along with large numbers of the expected landbirds.  The bikepath presently runs between Portman Park on the east to the Shannon Road-Winchester Pike Intersection on the west, a distance of perhaps 5 miles.  The best spot this morning was the Chatterton greenbelt, roughly in the middle of this stretch, where I found 10 different species of sparrows: Towhee (4), Tree (many), Field (2), Chipping (2), Song (many), Swamp (4), Fox (1), White-throat (many), White-crown (2), and Junco (8-10).  There were also plenty of Robins, finches, wrens, and woodpeckers, including a sapsucker, and the mix of small meadows, wetland edges, open fields, and riparian forest appears to make this area a bird magnet.  It's possible that there were even more kinds than what I found, since I was there in late morning and on a bike (so I couldn't easily get off-trail).

On another note, in a pond along Shannon Road I found 8 Mute Swans, which is an extreme number in Columbus.  This is the third report of them around here in the last 3 days: 1 was also in Upper Arlington and another was found in the Little Turtle area (north of Blendon Woods).  What this 'invasion' could signify is anyone's guess, but keep an eye out for Mute Swans over the next few days.

Rob

Rob Thorn
[log in to unmask]
EarthLink Revolves Around You.

______________________________________________________________________

Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.

You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]