After ticking off the cooperative Columbus Western Tanager around noon on Sunday December 10th, Joe Bens and I met my son Jack Stenger in Delaware Ohio and the three of us drove to Big Island & Killdeer Plains Wildlife Areas. We kept track of raptors and vulture sightings for the entire trip.

On the drive from Cincinnati to Columbus we counted 14 Red-tailed Hawks, 1 Rough-legged Hawk (near mile marker 65), 3 Cooper's Hawks, 3 American Kestrels and 3 Turkey Vultures.

            Because of not enough hours in the day, we only took the briefest of looks at Big Island WA  http://www.ohiobirds.org/birdingsites/showsite.php?Site_ID=7  . During a 20-minute visit we managed to see 1 Bald Eagle (im), another Rough-legged Hawk, 3 Northern Harriers, many Horned Larks and 20+ American Tree Sparrows. On the drive from Delaware to, and including, Big Island we counted 8 Red-tailed Hawks and 11 American Kestrels.

            Some of the species we found in and around Killdeer Plains  http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/wildlife/pdf/pub23.pdf  included; 25 Tundra Swans, 12 Red-tailed Hawks (we counted along any given road only once), 7 American Kestrels, an immature Bald Eagle, 5 Northern Harriers, 2 Short-eared Owls, 1-2 Long-eared Owls, Red-headed Woodpecker, 15+ Lapland Longspurs, 40~ American Tree Sparrows, many Horned Larks and a flock of 20+ Eastern Meadowlarks. The only waterfowl we saw at Killdeer Plains were a couple of thousand Canada Geese, hundreds of Mallards, 12 American Black Ducks and 1 Tundra Swan. The other 24 Tundra Swans (14 adult, 10 immature) were actually seen about 2 miles south of Killdeer Plains resting in a field of corn stubble along Meeker Upper Sandusky Rd. It wasn't the greatest day by Killdeer Plains standards, but some good finds nonetheless.

            Our totals for the day included 34 Red-tailed Hawks and 21 American Kestrels, not record setting numbers, but one example of the relative winter abundance of these two common Ohio residents. 

 

Jay Stenger

Cincinnati, Ohio

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