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August 2009

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From:
rob thorn <[log in to unmask]>
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rob thorn <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:39:28 -0400
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Many thanks to Kim Dolgin, who noticed my recent comments about Broad-winged Hawk rarity in central Ohio and Emailed me about 2 that have been calling around her neighborhood in Worthington.  This morning I had a chance to bike around the neighborhood, and I saw 1 bird and heard another calling.  Their acitivity seems centered around the Greenridge Run ravine, which is NW of Anturm Lake Park.  Kim mentioned that they had been hanging around for a while; perhaps they are the same birds Bernie Master had mentioned earlier in the Summer (his neighborhood is only 1/2 mile away as the raptor flies).  In any event, they're a great find for Columbus at this time of year.

Now the obvious question: why here?  In fact, Worthington has a good history of unusual raptors.  There was the Mississippi Kite there earlier in the Summer, and there's an active Red-shouldered Hawk nest in Rush Creek Village (on the southeast edge of the town).  There are also healthy populations of Red-tails and Cooper's; indeed, I had two of the latter this morning in a 30 minute bike ride.  But the raptors just highlight a bigger point: the town is a good migrant funnel, with large numbers of migrants reported along the Olentangy River and at Antrum Lake.  Why?  I'm not sure, but it could be because Worthington represents the southern-most edge of a long, more-or-less continuous patch of forest that stretches from Delaware south along the Olentangy River Valley.  The River bottom was farmed, but the steep sides of this narrow valley are still mostly forested and include some great nature preserves like Camp Mary Orton, Highbanks MetroPark, Stratford Ecological Center, and Camp Lazarus.  South of Worthington, however, the urban sprawl of Columbus has reduced this forest to a few pockets.  So Worthington, it seems, is not so different from Greenlawn-Whittier-Scioto, Blendon Woods, or Marble Cliff;  they're all at the termini of forested corridors, places where wandering birds accumulate.

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