Well, we've all heard some good suggestions about the birding calendar
in Ohio sites, some more self-serving than others--but you newbies will
get used to that.
        Another dimension to explore is history. Knowing something about birds
in years gone by--their populations, habitats, extinctions,
extirpations, introductions, odd records, etc.--adds an extra dimension.
You can learn what the Black Swamp was really like, and the prairies and
the Appalachian forests, how the canal system changed Ohio's birdlife,
or how unimaginable numbers of passenger pigeons disappeared in only a
few decades in the state. Of course there were not always chimneys for
chimney swifts, or barns for barn swallows. Believe it or not,
ring-billed gulls were almost unheard of in Ohio a century ago, and not
long before that swallow-tailed kites were common. Nearly one of every
ten species on the Ohio list hasn't been acceptably documented over the
past 25 years; four of them never will be seen again. The last Ohio
sighting of an ivory-billed woodpecker occurred in Miami County in
1804.   There are helpful historical sources for finding knowledge
accumulated over the decades about our birds:
        The current official checklist of Ohio's 422 bird species is at
http://www.ohiobirds.org/publications/checklist/official.php
        J. P. Kirtland's early work (1838) on the birds of Ohio may be found at
http://www.kirtlandbirdclub.org/writers_gallery/introducing_jpkirtland.htm
another interesting read is "Proceedings of the Cleveland Academy of
Natural Science, 1845-1859" via Google books.
        J. M Wheaton's 1882 work "Report on the Birds of Ohio, Lynds Jones's
"The Birds of Ohio," and William L. Dawson's "The Birds of Ohio" (both
1903) are excellent reading and also available on-line from Google Books
or in good libraries.
        An extensive annotated bibliography devoted to the birds of Ohio can be
searched at http://www.ohiobirds.org/resources/bibliography.pdf ,
and issues of thirteen national ornithological journals may be searched
at http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/  .
Welcome to all new Ohio birders,
Bill Whan
Columbus


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