The nice weather allowed for a better hike, but grounded fewer migrants at this woodland park SE of Columbus.  I spent 2 hours hiking the extensive trail system looking for migrants and recently arrived residents, finding more of the latter.  The forest here seems 7-10 days behind schedule, with many early SPring wildflowers still out and a paucity of bees & butterflies.  Highlights included:

Raptors - acitve Coopers Hawk nest in the Ash-Maple picnic area

Woodpeckers - not a 7-species day, but lively nonetheless, with Pileated & sapsucker as highlights.  I did have Red-headed, but it was earlier in the morning, migrating over Gahanna.

Flycatchers - still only Phoebes here, but 3 pairs making use of different picnci shelters as nest sites

Swallows - only resident Tree swallows swirling around nest boxes

Vireos - singing Yellow-throated & Blue-headed along the Beech-Maple trail

Thrushes - many territorial Wood Thrushes (8+) along the Beech-Maple trail, where 5-6 pairs usually nest

Kinglets - 7-8 Ruby-crowns, which was up from the prior day.  No Golden-crowns.

Wrens - many (7-9) singing territorial House Wrens, but far fewer (1 singing) Carolina Wrens

Gnatcatchers - The common bird of the morning, with singing birds everywhere, perhaps 14-15 in all

Mimids - singing thrasher & catbirds at several locations, but no mockingbirds could be found

Warblers - still waiting.  Yellow-rumps were widespread, although not abundant.  Also had Black-thr.Green, Palm, Nashville (4+), and 2 N.Waterthrushes singing at different parts of the park.  I also had singing Pine at a site in Gahanna, but clearly warblers are still low.

Grosbeaks & Buntings - 2 singing male Rose-br.Grosbeaks along the Beech-Maple trail, but this was down from a reported 7 at the Nature Center the prior day.  No Buntings could be found despite being around appropriate edge habitat much of the morning.

Icterids - no orioles, but plenty of blackbirds, including high numbers of courting Brown-headed Cowbirds


Rob Thorn
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