I haven't been able to make any long birding forays for several days, but the local trips have produced several curiosities.  I group them into the early migrants and the later-than-usual nesters, and I can only offer some guesses as to causes for each pattern.

Early:
Swainson's Thrush - I had another bird at a local park in Whitehall (Columbus suburb) 2 days ago, hard on the heels of an earlier bird at 3-Creeks Park.  This is 1-2 weeks earlier than usual.  Have these birds had an exceptionally good or bad year in Canada?

Red-br.Nuthatch - 1 was calling in the conifer grove at Bexley's Jeffrey Park yesterday.  While this is a great place to look for them in migration, usually that means mid-late September, not the end of August.  This should be an invasion year for them, but perhaps this very early bird augurs a real INVASION year.  Any word on cone crops in Ontario?

Late:
Yellow-throated Warbler feeding a fledgeling at Jeffrey Park yesterday.  This warbler species has been becoming a later migrant in the last several years, lingering into mid-September now.  This specific individual may offer a clue as to why: these birds are learning to double-brood or at least re-nest.  This is a big deal, since relatively few warblers do these behaviors.  It also might help explain why they're becoming more common in central Ohio riparian areas.

Parula Warblers feeding fledgelings in Chatterton Greenbelt (6 days ago) and 3-Creeks Park (5 days ago).  This species has become much more common as a nester around central Ohio riparian belts, and probably for much the same reason as Yellow-throated.  By double-brooding or re-nesting, they increase their chance of recovery from a nest failure or brood loss.

______________________________________________________________________

Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/.

You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]