Yesterday I took a look at that map showing where W-w Crossbills have been seen in the state and noticed that none have been seen in the S central counties. That seemed mighty strange since there are plenty of hemlocks in those counties and crossbills are being seen in WV and KY.

I headed down to the Shawnee SF this morning to have a look. At my first stop at some hemlocks along Pond Lick Run I found 4 WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILLS. But that was it for the day. I also looked around the state park campground and the northern part of the forest where there are more hemlocks. It was a cold and heavily overcast day there and birding in general was very quiet, so I didn't stay there long.

I checked out Moore's Lane afterward and there is some good looking shorebird habitat where 9 Killdeers were present. I hope the condition there doesn't change in the next few months because they have been draining and plowing that area in recent years.

On the way back I looked through some hemlocks at Scioto Trail in Ross County which also surprisingly has no crossbill reports yet, but I had no success. It too was very quiet and I didn't stay there long.

Back home in Columbus this afternoon there was a nice assortment and number of ducks in my backyard stretch of the Scioto River including :

1 Wood Duck
~200 Ring-necked Ducks
~20 Redheads
~10 Canvasbacks
~30 Hooded Mergansers
4 Buffleheads
~20 Common Goldeneyes

This evening I headed back to the McKinley Quarry. 30 or so Great Blue Herons were on their nests (none were there 2 days ago). The huge blackbird flocks were mostly congregated at the inaccessible far side of the quarry where the could only be seen as distant silhouettes. I did manage to get my binoculars on a few thousand on them on the near side, but I still haven't seen a Rusty among them yet.

Bob Royse


Robert Royse
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www.roysephotos.com

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