I spent about 4 hours wandering the trails of Sharon Woods Metro Park in
Columbus yesterday morning, looking for early breeders (I managed to get the
atlas block containing this metropark last August, after observing for a
couple months that no one had signed up for it). I was mainly looking for
breeding behavior of "safe-date" species, but was very pleasantly surprised
to confirm breeding behavior in the form of nest building for American Robin
and Eastern Phoebe.
Notes of interest:
Field Sparrows are out in force, with at least two or more in every suitable
open field.
Northern Flickers were everywhere it seemed, with numerous pairs observed. I
had a Red-Bellied Woodpecker drumming after a second one began calling.
Otherwise, not much action on the woodpecker front.
Tree Swallows are sitting on the nest boxes but I observed no other possible
breeding behavior. I did observe a male bluebird seemingly chase off a Tree
Swallow from a nestbox.
On the Oak Openings trail, I saw a hawk fly away from me in the pine stand,
and to my surprise, as it began calling, it clearly turned out to be a
Sharp-Shinned Hawk! I in fact observed two hawks here, both with many trees
between me and the hawks so I never got a good look - so I won't claim both
were Sharpies. Both were accipters, so I'm thinking that a Cooper's Hawk may
have spooked or chased the Sharpie. However, I will keep my fingers crossed
hard that there's a pair here (one can always hope).
I also had what I'm pretty sure was a Louisiana Waterthrush calling on the
Spring Creek Trail, but I'm not 100% confident of that.
Schrock Lake didn't have much, but there was a pair of Ruddy Ducks, a pair
of Bufflehead, five Ring-Necked Ducks and two pairs of Pied-Billed Grebes.
After atlasing, I went over to Glacier Ridge Metro Park west of Dublin (take
the Post Road exit off of SR 161and follow the signs) to see if I couldn't
find a couple of the snipe reported there last week. Looks like pretty good
shorebird habitat, but the only shorebirds there I could find were Killdeer
and four Wilson's Snipe huddled together. A treat was the flock of
Bonaparte's Gulls, many in breeding plumage with black heads (first time
I've seen this for the species).
Andrew R. Sewell, MS, RPA
Principal Investigator
Historical/Industrial Archaeology
Hardlines Design Company
4608 Indianola Avenue
Columbus, Ohio 43214
ph. (614)-784-8733
fax (614)-784-9336
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