With a tight schedule, I 'snuck off' for an hour yesterday and an hour today to survey parks along Alum Creek in the more urban reaches of Columbus.  Yesterday I visited Innis Park, while today I stopped at Mock Park & Jeffrey Park.  All of these are islands of forest habitat in a fairly urban stretch of creek bottom, but they do have a thin riparian strip linking them in a tenuous corridor.  Each had some interesting migrants, although we are near the tail end of landbird migration here in central Ohio.  Most of our vegetation, other than honeysuckle and introduced trees, have dropped their leaves.  Highlights included:

woodpeckers - 2-3 flickers at every site indicates a late push of these irruptive woodpeckers, while a sapsucker at Jeffrey is likely a winter resident setting up shop.

wrens, creepers - Carolina wrens were positively abundant at all these sites (that's what 2-3 optimal breeding years will do), while Winter wrens were scarce, with only 1 (Innis).  Only a few creepers were found, probably signaling the far side of their migratory peak.

kinglets - single Ruby-crowns were still hiding at Innis & Mock, but Golden-crowns were at every stop in numbers.  It'll be a good winter for these little mites.

Thrushes - Robins were in flocks everywhere, but bluebirds and hermits were conspicuous by their scarcity (no bluebirds and only 1 hermit -- at Innis)

American Pipits - these late migrants were represented by 2 birds roaming the fields next to Mock Park

Warblers - still only Yellow-rumps, but plenty of them

Sparrows - White-throats were everywhere in small flocks, while most other sparrow species were becoming scarce.  3 Fox sparrows in an hour at Innis represented a good number of this late migrant.

Blackbirds - small flocks of south-flying Redwings & grackles on both mornings may indicate that these species are making good their escape to the lower Ohio River Valley while the weather is nice.


Rob Thorn
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EarthLink Revolves Around You.

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