I headed to the Zaleski State Forest today (Apr. 3).  Even though the bird life and vegetation was clearly not as far along as at Shawnee yesterday, there was some very interesting birding to be had there, with the differences between Shawnee and Zaleski especially noticeable. The steep, shady river bottoms in general had far fewer birds than the ridge tops. The opposite was true yesterday at Shawnee. Zaleski's extensive pine tracts, especially in the SE part of the forest and in the Waterloo State Forest area had the most activity. Shawnee lacks that type of habitat with mostly only widely scattered pines on the ridge tops. Here are some of the birds counted there today.  Numbers are from Zaleski itself and what are technically adjacent public lands such as Lake Hope State Park, Waterloo State Forest (especially productive now), and the Waterloo Wildlife Area (not as interesting as it will be later in the month).

1 (only) Blue-headed Vireo (technically in Lake Hope SP)

2 Hermit Thrushes - SINGING birds were apparently on territory along Baptist Church Rd. and in the Waterloo SF.

4 Brown Thrashers

5 Blue-gray Gnatcatchers - just beginning to arrive.

5 Black-throated Green Warblers - After missing out on them yesterday at Shawnee, I made sure to hit Zaleski's reliable spots for them in the morning and found 5 singing males. They were all still singing sporadically in the afternoon.

19 Yellow-throated/Sycamore Warblers -  This species was still completely absent from the river bottoms.  A morning drive along the E Raccoon creek failed to turn up even a single bird in the sycamores. They were absent along all the other creeks too. They were present exclusively in the pines. 2 were present in Lake Hope SP along Rt. 278, but they were in pines.  All the others were on the ridges.

25 + Pine Warblers - Zaleski has what I belive to be Ohio's densest concentration of this species in its extensive pine tracts, and that is especially noticeable at this time of year. All the roads in the SE part of the forest invariably host several singing males.

14 Louisiana Waterthrushes were noted in the morning. They stopped singing in the afternoon, but from what I could tell, they were present everywhere they should be. The number is relatively low since I spent most of the morning poking through the pines on the ridges.

With temperatures across the state plummeting soon, it might be a week or more before there is another wave of arrivals in the forests.

Bob Royse


Robert Royse
[log in to unmask]
www.roysephotos.com

______________________________________________________________________

Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/.

You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]