This morning I walked the Marie Hickey Trail at Black Hand Gorge, with
spectacular results, in my view. Afterwards, since I was dressed for tick
prevention anyway, I went out to Dawes Arboretum's Dutch Fork wetlands to
see what I could scare up. The day's results:
Marie Hickey Trail, Black Hand Gorge:
Mourning dove
Red-bellied woodpecker
Pileated woodpecker
Eastern phoebe
Gray catbird
Swainson's thrush
Hermit thrush
Wood thrush
American robin
Blue-gray gnatcatcher
Carolina chickadee
Tufted titmouse
White-breasted nuthatch
Blue jay
White-eyed vireo
Red-eyed vireo
Acadian flycatcher
Blue-winged warbler
Prairie warbler
Bay-breasted warbler - only my 3rd ever
Black-and-white warbler - 2 - finally!
Ovenbird - 3
Hooded warbler - 3
Common yellowthroat
Scarlet tanager
Eastern towhee
Northern cardinal
Baltimore oriole
(NOTE: This was the day of the thrushes. The wind must have knocked the
migrants down last night, because I saw 11 spotted thrushes other than the
regular wood thrush that nests there in abundance. I could not positively
ID all of them, but of the eleven, I definitely had one hermit and two
Swainson's. At one place, I had 5 thrushes that I could follow from where I
was standing, not together exactly but doing their skulking act, as usual.
I could determine that they were not robins and not wood thrushes, but as I
was trying to get a positive ID on them, one at a time, some deer came down
the path and spooked the birds. I wanted so badly to get a definitive ID on
a veery, but sometimes when the birds are not cooperative and the lighting
is less than ideal, you just have to let it go.)
Dutch Fork wetlands, Dawes Arboretum
Great blue heron
Green heron
Canada goose
Wood duck - with ducklings
Mallard
Turkey vulture
Killdeer
Rock pigeon
Red-bellied woodpecker
Eastern kingbird - first of the year
Eastern bluebird
American goldfinch
Yellow warbler
Chipping sparrow
Field sparrow
Tree swallow
Barn swallow
Red-winged blackbird
Then, when I got home, I heard a very high pitched call from my neighbor's
tree, and finally spotted a blackpoll warbler!
Total for the day: 47 species
Total species in Licking Co. for May, so far: 98
Total Licking Co. for 2007: 146.
I can say this for my personal challenge: I think I'm becoming a better
birder. I'm not taking any bird for granted, which makes me look more
carefully at every bird. That is how I got the bay-breasted warbler - I was
looking for the black-and-white that I could hear, saw some vireos, and then
the bay breasted popped into view.
For a review of the challenge and the results for far, check out this OOS
page:
http://www.ohiobirds.org/forum/viewtopic.php?id=234
Margaret Bowman
Licking Co., OH
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