I headed to Shawnee State Forest today (April 2) for the first time in a couple of weeks. The vegetation is far more advanced than it typically the case for this date, but the bird life was typical.  I started the day from the northernmost entrance to the forest in Lombardsville for a change of pace, and didn't venture into the south part of the forest until mid-afternoon when many species were already quiet. Here are some birds that I counted today :

BLUE-HEADED VIREO - 14
This is a species that really needs some closer scrutiny at Shawnee, especially in regards to nesting status.  The count includes some females, since several of the birds were paired up already.  This species is more common in the northern part of the forest than in the south, and starting the day up there resulted in a higher tally than I usually get. This is the time to really get to study them. They seem to invariably like shady slopes, and their territories are fairly large, utilizing a whole slope. The females seem to occasionally sing I think (but am not 100% sure). They don't sing nearly as persistently as Red-eyeds do, and sing even less later in the season. I suspect that they are overlooked for the most part later in the spring season. Their occasional sporadic phrases later in the month are lost in a sea of Red-eyeds. I have no idea if all these birds were arriving to set up nesting territories, or if some were possibly migrants that will be moving on at a later da
 te. What I do know is that they typically show up and pair up in the same general places in the forest every year in late March, and stay a while. Sibley shows 2 subspecies of Blue-headed Vireo in his book, but I'm not certain if if the Shawnee birds are the Appalachian or northern subspecies. Someone with a lot of time on their hands really needs to examine this species at Shawnee! I suspect that there are probably around a dozen nesting pairs, with probably more away from earshot of the roads.

Brown Thrasher - 4

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher - 14 - just beginning to arrive, and only found in the bottomlands so far.

Yellow-throated (Sycamore) Warbler - 20 - also just beginning to arrive.

Pine Warbler - 12+ - With Chipping Sparrows now present, telling singing males apart with certainty becomes problematic. Five years ago I felt very confident telling apart the songs of Chipping Sparrows and Pine Warblers, but I've since heard such a huge range of speed, colors, and length from both species that I really don't feel so confident any more!

Black-and-white Warbler - only one was noted so far. I didn't find any B-t Greens today, but some might have been singing in the southern part of the forest in the morning.

Louisiana Waterthrush - 27 - mostly singing males in the morning. They were pretty quiet in the afternoon.

Sparrows - Chipping Sparrows were back, but still not present in some places that they will eventually occupy on the ridges. Field Sparrows were singing in some of the regenerating clearcuts after the ice storm. Eastern Towhees were abundant. Wintering and migrating sparrows were almost non-existant, except of single digit numbers of Dark-eyed Juncos.

On the way home, I looked into several flooded areas of the Scioto River without finding very much anywhere. Killdeers were seen here and there, but the only other shorebirds seen were about a dozen Pectoral Sandpipers behind the locked red gate along Rt. 104 just south of Lake White in Pike County.

Bob Royse

Robert Royse
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www.roysephotos.com

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