Like many others, I had Rusty Blackbirds on my mind this morning.  Among the 'most reliable' local sites for them are a series of vernal pool woodlands in NE Franklin County.  Gahanna Woods is the best known, but there are a whole series of others extending east and north through Jefferson and Plain townships into Delaware County.  I stuck to 4 woodlands in Jefferson Township.  In other years, a morning around these woodlands might produce 1-3 Rusties (which, sadly, is about as predictable as they get hereabouts).  None were around this morning, probably because of the lingering ice that covered nearly all of the wetlands.  If they really search out mast and other goodies from these pools, they would've needed ice picks this morning.  I'm guessing they're still somewhere down in southern Ohio and Kentucky, slowly working their way north with the thaw.

Other than the whiff on Rusties, the woods had good numbers of winter residents.  Gahanna Woods had all the usual suspects, plus a calling Red-shouldered Hawk, 2 Eastern Bluebirds, and 3-4 yellow-rumped warblers.  None of the other woodlands had anything significantly different.  Most interestingly, none of these woods had signs of the other 'mast-specialist': Red-headed Woodpeckers. The acorn crop here does not seem very good, so it's possible that both of these species, Rusties and Red-heads, were forced further south this year.

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