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March 2007

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From:
Rob Thorn <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Wed, 28 Mar 2007 00:07:13 -0400
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I birded two park areas along the Olentangy River corridor today: Buckeye Swamp (OSU wetlands) and Whetstone Park.  Despite perfect weather, migrations is proceeeding slowly here, with many of the same early temperate migrants that have dominated postings over the last week.  Water levels were high, so some portions of the bikepath (that runs through both parks) were flooded.  As an added bonus, the pocket prairie at Whetstone was burned today, which was an interesting event in its own right.  Bird highlights included:

woodpeckers - large numbers of Downies & Red-bellies jousting for territories and prime feeding areas along the flooded forest areas in both parks.  Only 1 sapsucker (at Whetstone).

Phoebe - single birds at each park, flycatching over the flooded forest pools

Swallows - a few Tree Swallows and my first ROUGH-WINGED were foraging over the pond and nearby river at Buckeye Swamp.

Kinglets,Creepers - some, but numbers far below what they've been over the last 6 days.  ONly 4 Golden-crowns and 3 Brown Creepers in about 2 hours of birding.

Thrushes - nothing but Robins

Sparrows - still good number of Fox sparrows around, with 5 total in the 2 hours, including 2 singing birds at Buckeye Swamp.  Good numbers of White-throats (20+) and Song Sparrows (20) at Buckeye Swamp

Blackbirds - small numbers of Redwings & grackles at both parks, but larger numbers of calling & courting cowbirds at each.

The prairie burning ran from about 12:00-1:00+ and was still ongoing when I left.  Even though the prairie here is small & compact, it turned out to be a difficult burn largely because of the predominance of herbs.  The goldenrod and sunflower stalks & heads burned quite slowly compared to the tussocks of bluestem grass.  You could even see when the fire hit a grass tussock, as it erupted like a Roman candle for a few seconds.  I would imagine that the grass has evolved to burn hotter so as to sear away the competing herbs, while the herbs want to burn slower to spare their more heat-sensitive rootstocks.  The fire didn't seem to affect the surrounding birdlife much, other than to flush out a few Song Sparrows.


Rob Thorn
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EarthLink Revolves Around You.

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