Has anyone ever birded the Charlemont Reservation in southwestern
Lorain County?  I had the privilege of birding this great area during
January for the Ohio Winter Bird Atlas and just recently, Ethan
Kistler found a pair of CLAY-COLORED SPARROWS here while conducting
point count surveys for the Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas II.  Follow up
surveys yesterday revealed several other interesting species at the
preserve in addition to the persistence of a singing Clay-colored
Sparrow in the same location where Ethan had the birds a week before.

What about the Blues Creek Preserve in western Delaware County?  Yet
another fantastic birding location!  Unfortunately, these interesting
preserves aren't even marked in the new edition of the DeLorme
Gazetteer.  You may find some marked on internet sites like Google
Maps (like the Charlemont Reservation) or you may not (as is the case
for Blues Creek Preserve).  Regardless, these under-birded or
non-birded publicly accessible sites may be harboring some really
fantastic birds!

If you're interested in exploring more of this great state and the
enormous wealth of birding possibilities that it harbors, here are a
few tips that I have found quite useful:

#1 - contact the county engineer's office for the particular county
you're interested in exploring further.  These offices usually make
folded county maps available free of charge.  Most of the time, these
maps show incredible detail that a map resource such as the DeLorme
Gazeetteer could never capture.

#2 - do a Google search for the county of interest while including
other key words such as conservation, metropark, preserves, etc.  You
may come up with websites such as that for Delaware County
Preservation Parks (http://www.preservationparks.com/parks.asp), which
shows their array of parks spread across the county.

#3 - visit the Department of Natural Areas & Preserves website
(http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Default.aspx?alias=www.dnr.state.oh.us/dnap).
 This site lists all the State Nature Preserves on one map with each
being hyperlinked to more details for each preserve.

#4 - ODNR Wildlife Areas -
(http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/wild_resourcessubhomepage/WildlifeAreaMapsLandingPage/tabid/19694/Default.aspx)
each of the dozens of state wildlife areas have printable PDF maps
that are incredibly useful.

In terms of atlasing, it's often a challenge to gain access to certain
areas of a particular Atlas block.  Since the vast majority of Ohio is
privately owned, it's always nice to be able to roam an area on foot
as opposed to drive-by birding.  I encourage everyone to explore some
of the little known areas of Ohio.  You'll probably find some
fantastic preserves out there and many of these areas are most
certainly in Atlas blocks with no data.

Good birding!

--
Aaron Boone
Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas II
School of Environment & Natural Resources
The Ohio State University
210 Kottman Hall
2021 Coffey Road
Columbus, OH 43210-1085
614.247.6458 (office)
www.ohiobirds.org/obba2/

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