I've been busy atlasing the Deer Creek area. I have 6 blocks there that includes portions of the state park, wildlife area, and surrounding farmlands. I've put in 80+ hours so far, and still have much to do. I still haven't been able to get a canoe down there, and it might have to wait until next year. I also haven't done any nocturnal birding yet.

Here's a general summary :

Waterfowl, etc.  - Canada Geese, Wood Ducks, and Mallards are all confirmed in at least some blocks. Blue-winged Teal almost certainly nest in the area, but I haven't confirmed them yet. A female Hooded Merganser has been seen in the creek and possibly might nest in the area. A laggard female Ruddy Duck was good for a "X", but I doubt that they nest there. A few pairs of Pied-billed Grebes nest in the wetlands as do possibly Am. Coots. D-c Cormorants have been seen in several blocks, but I have seen no signs of them nesting in the area.

Game birds  - Wild Turkeys have been seen in 2 blocks so far, but I suspect they occur in others as well. I did flush a hen with some chicks in one of those blocks. Ring-necked Pheasants are all over the place in the state wildlife area. Several folks from ODNR contacted after my last post to say that no releases have been made there since 1991. So you listers, you can count them there.

Herons, etc. - Great Blue Herons almost certainly nest in the area, but I haven't discovered exactly where yet. They've been seen in all the blocks I've covered with any water. Green Herons pop up here and there, and almost surely nest in the area. A canoe trip down the creek would undoubtedly turn up more. A Great Egret (or two) in the area is of more questionable breeding status.

Raptors -  The Osprey nest at the N end of the reservoir I believe has one or more hatched chicks in it.  One of the adults  has taken to foraging far from the nest, possibly to get away from all the boaters and fishermen, and has been seen in the wetlands a few blocks southward.  I've only seen one Cooper's Hawk, although surely more must be in the area. Red-taileds are much more widespread in every block, and I know the location of at least one nest. Am. Kestrels are few and far between, and present in only a couple blocks, although there could be others.

Shorebirds -  Killdeers are ubiquitous, especially in the surrounding farmland. A Spotted Sandpiper was seen along the creek. Again a canoe trip would be nice. I haven't done any nocturnal atlasing yet, but Am Woodcocks were everywhere there in March. I would think that some must stay to nest, but I'll probably wait until next year to find out, since it's getting already late in the season for them. No signs of any Upland Sandpipers, which were confirmed there during the first atlas.

Yellow-billed Cuckoos are present in all blocks, and many have already gotten a "T7", but I haven't found any nests yet.

Owls - I have flushed several Great Horneds. I know that E Screech-Owls are present in most blocks too, but, again, I'll probably wait until next year for the nocturnal birding. I haven't found any Barred Owls, but I would suspect that at least a few are present along the creek.

R-t Hummingbirds, Belted Kingfishers, Chimney Swifts, doves, and pigeons are all present as expected. Kingfishers can really be inconspicuous at this time of year. I have only seen them in a couple of blocks and they've been silent.  There is suitable nesting for them along the banks of the creek in many spots.

Woodpeckers -  I have found nests for Downy, Hairy, Red-bellied, and N Flicker. Of those, only the Hairies are thinly distributed. One block has a few pairs of Red-headeds, but they're also not widespread. I've found only one Pileated in the riparian woods, a drumming male that seems to favor a certain resonant snag by the creek. I haven't found a female or a nest yet.

Flycatchers -  E Wood-Peewees are present all along the creek and in isolated woodlots large and small. Acadians are mostly present along the creek and seem to avoid the smaller isolated woodlots in the area.  Willow Flycatchers are abundant in the state wildlife area in every block. E Phoebes have turned up here and there, mostly around bridges and buildings, but they're not very vocal at this time of year.  Next year I need to get an earlier start to the atlasing to detect the singing birds better. Great Cresteds are widespread, especially along the creek. I've found a couple of nesting sites. Now that they're nesting they're considerably less conspicuous than they were only a week ago. E Kingbirds are also widespread in all the blocks I'm  doing.

Vireos - White-eyeds are most common in the state park where there is a lot of mid-stage successional habitats. They seem to avoid isolated thickets surrounded by fields and crops in much of the wildlife area. Probably the highlight for me so far has been finding two pairs of Bell's Vireos, both in the the same block. That species is probably a lot more common in Ohio than anyone realizes. Good habitat for them is ample, and they're showing up and finding mates. Their song doesn't really project very far, and I'm sure many are overlooked. Hopefully I'll find even more. Yellow-throated Vireos are only slightly more common, and I've found 4 singing males, all along the creek N of the reservoir at openings. Warbling Vireos are present in every block in suitable habitat. Red-eyeds are fairly common along the creek, but they're not present in the isolated woodlots away from the creek.

Jays and crows - yep they're around but difficult to confirm since they don't really have territorial songs.

Horned Larks are ubiquitous in surrounding farm fields.

Swallows - I have found nesting sites for Purple Martin, Tree, Barn, and N Rough-wingeds. Banks Swallows are present along the S side of the reservoir. I suspect they might nest nearby, but I haven't found exactly where yet. No Cliffs have been seen at any of the small bridges in the area.

Chickadees, nuthatches, wrens, gnatcatchers -  House Wrens are abundant in every block, along creeks and in thickets large and small. Blue-gray Gnatcatchers are also widespread. When I first started atlasing the area I thought that Carolina Chickadees and Carolina Wrens were inconspicuous at this time of year and I was just overlooking them. That may be true to some extent, but after having put in some real effort to locate them in what seemed like large tracts of characteristic habitat, I finally figured out that they're just scarce or absent in certain areas, notably the wooded areas along the Deer Creek in the northern two blocks of the state wildlife area. Why?  West Nile virus?  Tufted Titmice are fairly common in those areas. C. Chickadees and C. Wrens are fairly easy to locate in similar habitat in the next blocks southward. White-breasted Nuthatches are equally scarce in those same areas, but I didn't expected them to be too numerous in riparian woodlands. I haven't f
 ound any Sedge Wrens, but there is some suitable habitat for them and perhaps some will show up for late nesting in July.

Thrushes -  Eastern Bluebirds are very scarce. I've only seen one nest box with them in one of my blocks and an additional bird flying around in a farm field in another block. That's it. Bluebirds are fairly common around there in the fall and winter, and I really expected to see a lot more of them as nesters. Wood Thrushes are present in all blocks in wooded thickets. Am Robins have already been confirmed in most of the blocks.

Mimids - Gray Catbirds and Brown Thrashers are ubiquitous. N Mockingbirds are not. N Mockingbird is another species that seems so conspicuous around there in the fall and winter. I assumed that the birds there were permanent residents, but apparently they're not or they're being very, very quiet. All the mockers I've found singing have been on private property outside the state park or W.A..

Cedar Waxwings will be an easy "OS" in every block starting on the 15th. I haven't seen any nest or nest building yet.

Warblers - The ubiquitous species are Yellow and Common Yellowthroat. YB Chats have also been found in every block, and are common in most areas of both the state park and wildlife area.  I've found 4 pairs of Prothonotaries in areas I can get to without a canoe, all along the lower stretch of the Deer Creek before it enters the reservoir. There seems to be suitable habitat for them in many places further north also, but I haven't found any up there. Their population would surely grow if someone was putting nest boxes up for them Like Charlie Bombaci does at Hoover. The recent range expansion of N Parulas along riparian corridors in central Ohio is apparent along the Deer Creek too. I have found singing males in the two blocks north of the reservoir. Perhaps no other species range has expanded more in Ohio than the N Parula's since the first atlas. Yellow-throateds have also expanded similarly since the first atlas, and I've found them in the same blocks as the parula, as wel
 l as below the dam. They're most numerous well upstream, and I've found 4 in the most northern block even though access to the creek is very limited up there. The Kentucky Warbler I mentioned in my last summary hasn't been relocated. Unfortunately that was on May 29, 2 days before the safe date. It very well could still be around, but I haven't heard it or any others. Access to the wooded tracts on the east side of the creek is very limited, but I haven't heard any songs of other likely candidates such as Ovenbird or Hooded wafting through the trees. There is some suitable looking habitat for Blue-wingeds in a couple of blocks, but there is no sign of them either. One unexpected warbler was a B-t Green on June 6th, well within the safe date. It was in a shady wooded gorge singing for a few days. There were no hemlocks there. I didn't expect it to stay, and it didn't, but it was worth at least an "X".

Tanagers - 4 or 5 singing male Scarlets have been found in the northern 2 blocks in the wooded areas east of the Deer Creek.  I haven't come across any Summers, although they were apparently present in the area during the first atlas.

Sparrows - E Towhees are in wooded thickets in every block. Chipping Sparrows are widespread in the developed areas of the state park and in surrounding rural residences. Field Sparrows and Song Sparrows are abundant in the state wildlife area and have been already confirmed in several blocks. Vesper Sparrows along with Horned Larks are ubiquitous in the farmed areas outside the state land and don't seem to demand much in the way of quality grassland.  Vespers aren't very persistent singers and are easiest to find early in the morning perched on telephone wires or fence posts. Grasshopper and Savannah Sparrows are also widespread, but are more particular in their habitat preferences. Some of the places where I first found them have since been mowed. There is some fresh grassland in a new southern extension of the W.A. near New Holland that hosts quite a few Grasshoppers, but otherwise they're hard to find in the area. I haven't heard any Henslow's in the area, although there
 does seem to be some suitable habitat for them. They've been reported recently not far away near the Pickaway Co. Airport, and I would be almost surprised not to find any before 2010.

Cardinals, Buntings, Dickcissels -  N Cardinals are widespread in suitable habitat. Indigo Buntings are absolutely abundant everywhere, perhaps being the most common and widespread nesting birds in the Deer Creek area. I thought I heard a Blue Grosbeak yesterday, but the bird couldn't be detected and stopped singing as I approached it. This is another species that I think will eventually be found before 2010 in the area. There is a lot of suitable habitat for them, and they are known to occur nearby near the Pickaway Co. Airport. Blue Grosbeaks aren't very persistent singers, and I may have overlooked some already. Dickcissels,OTOH, are very persistent singers and are present in all of my blocks and have also been found in an other block. I know of about 40 singing males scattered throughout the area.  They seem to favor weedier areas than some of the other grassland birds, and aren't as threatened by the prospect of having their nests mowed over as some of the others.

Blackbirds - Bobolinks, poor Bobolinks. I found them outside of the state property in Fayette Co. hayfields in several places of 3 blocks in early June exuberantly singing and displaying. Almost all these places have since been mowed over and round bales of hay are all that remain in the once musical fields. I don't know how many, if any, still remain in the area. Many E Meadowlark nests have also probably been recently mowed over, but they're more widespread in the area and can still be easily found in every block. Yeah, there are lots of Red-wingeds, C Grackles, and B-h Cowbirds around. Baltimore Orioles are present in cottonwoods in every block. Orchard Orioles are a bit more localized, absent in some blocks, but easy to find in others.

Finches - Am Goldfinches are everywhere and now that their safe date has passed, they're an easy "OS" everywhere. House Finches are present around many shady residences outside the state property.

Thoughts about the Deer Creek area -  The state wildlife area is obviously managed for hunters and not breeding birds. It's not called a "Nature Preserve" for good reason. The only really natural areas in the northern part of the W.A. are along the creek itself. The large population of pheasants attests for that.  Personally for me, a pheasant is about as exciting as a European Starling or a House Sparrow. Miles of cornfields are planted along the creek. While they may attract game to shoot in the fall, those places attract roughly the same breeding bird species as does the Moon. There are virtually no mid-stage successional fields and woods or grasslands in the wildlife area attractive to species such as Bobolinks. Why can't at least some of those cornfields be planted with the same grasses that attract Bobolinks just outside the state property and be allowed to last through the nesting season?  Why does ODNR plant exclusively the crops that they do while right across the ro
 ad the nests of Bobolinks, Grasshopper Sparrows, etc. are getting sliced and diced away from mowing blades?

Thoughts about atlasing - To me this is the most fun and constructive type of birding that there is. I've kept lists, travelled, and dabbled with bird photography and recording over the years, but atlasing is a blast that all those other things can't top. I first started birding after the first atlas project was long over, but the actual book was still available to be purchased. (That whole book is now online at the OBBA2 website in PDF form). It was an invaluable resource to me at the time, although it doesn't take much effort to find data that has become completely out-of-date since then. Breeding Loggerhead Shrikes were still widely scattered and breeding N Parulas were limited to certain areas. Ditto what Aaron Boone recently mentioned in a post about getting your sightings up at the OBBA2 website as quickly as possible.  I see a lot of people posting sightings to ohio-birds and not finding those sighting up at the OBBA2 website. Why? It takes a whole lot less effort and
 time to record and post what you seen in the field there than it does to write a posting to ohio-birds. Someone with a block next to mine that I pass through regularly hasn't posted a single sighting yet, and I'm unsure if I should be keeping notes there or how much effort is being put in. It would be awful if the next atlas was in any way being viewed as incomplete or inaccurate because of just plain general apathy from the top birders. It would be wonderful to hold another book in 2010 that was a great as the first one. Any time you go anywhere in the state you can keep records and add data. Last week I visited some friends in Licking Co. I spent a few hours looking around their property and driving a few miles around there and came up with over 60 species in a block with no other data. It's just a whole lot of fun!  Also a big point about atlasing that hasn't been pumped is that all the mileage is tax deductible. Tax deductible birding - what more can you ask for?

Bob Royse

______________________________________________________________________

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]