Hi all,



Just a quick note of appreciation to all who attended last weekend's Ohio
Ornithological Society conference in Perrysburg. The birding was stellar,
and nearly everyone got to see great birds such as Little Blue Heron, Lark
Sparrow, Summer Tanager, Mourning Warbler, and scads of migrant warblers and
other songbirds. A very lucky few even got last Sunday's Kirtland Warbler,
and more lucksters saw the wildly erratic Red Crossbill pack that has been
haunting the Girdham Road area of the Oak Openings. If you are so inclined,
visit my blog - URL in my signature line - and you can see some photos and
accounts of the weekend.

I also want to extend my appreciation to the folks at Black Swamp Bird
Observatory, who have really ramped up efforts to accommodate the enormous
flocks of birders that come from all over Ohio and the U.S. to visit our
birding Mecca, Magee Marsh and its legendary Bird Trail. BSBO volunteers
with "BSBO BIRD GUIDE" T-shirts were very much in evidence in the area, and
helped many a new - and not so new - birder find interesting birds. This
sort of friendly public outreach is a beautiful thing, and helps to cement
Ohio's rep as a good place for birding, and birders.

Another big nod of thanks is very much in order for the guys with the tour
company, Tropical Birding: Sam Woods, Josh Engel, and Iain Campbell. They
were here at the invite of BSBO, and were immensely useful ambassadors,
tirelessly roaming the area, finding birds, and doing their best to see that
everyone found everything they were looking for. Their regular bulletins
updating us all on what species were being seen where was very helpful to
folks visiting Magee and vicinity. And as Ohio has one of the larger U.S.
listserves with some 1,300 subscribers, their updates were helpful to many
people. It was a pleasure to meet these three and get to know them a bit,
and I wish they could be cloned and distributed uniformly around the globe.
We would then have even more bird enthusiasts.

And don't forget - the spring rush of birding is hardly over. This weekend
should bode well for latecomers like Connecticut Warbler, Yellow-bellied and
Olive-sided Flycatcher, more cuckoos, thrushes and others. I hope to make my
third weekend in a row at Magee this Saturday, and will wish hard for
another Kirtland's!

Happy spring birding to all.

Jim McCormac



Jim McCormac

Columbus, Ohio

Like nature? Visit my blog: http://jimmccormac.blogspot.com/

Like birds? Join the Ohio Ornithological Society: http://www.ohiobirds.org






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