There's some interesting birding to be found by poking around the enormous Deer Creek Wildlife Area in Pickaway and Fayette Counties. I spent a short while this afternoon checking a small part of it.

In the middle wetland tract north of New Holland there wasn't nearly as much much shorebird habitat as last year at this time, just a bit on the eastern edge. That area hosted many Killdeers, 4 Gr Yellowlegs, ~40 L Yellowlegs, ~20 Pectoral Sandpipers, and 2 (that I could see) Least Sandpipers. Also in that area were 2 imm. Bald Eagles.
 
I bushwhacked my way around the southern wetland tract, and the fields were swarming with flocking birds. Notable were ~100 Field Sparrows, ~150 Savannah Sparrows, several Henslow's Sparrows, and ~ 75 Bobolinks with probably more stuff hunkered down because of the wind. Henslow's nested there this year, but I have no idea if the birds there today were migrants. I would think that area would be a great place to regularly check over the course of the next month for migrant Ammodramus sparrows.

I took a quick peek at the State Park beach and counted 81 Killdeers, 1 Sanderling, ~300 R-b Gulls, and 4 Herring Gulls. A Merlin flew out a scattered all the birds while I was there (including the gulls). The reservoir is still at full capacity, but I believe they start drawing it down on Oct 1.

Bob Royse


Robert Royse
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www.roysephotos.com

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