It’s my favorite time of the year. Adding to a binge of birding some of my
favorite locations in search of migrants it’s now time to pay attention to
my nest boxes at Hoover Reservoir. I began making a circuit of the trail
this morning visiting Oxbow Road, Wiese Road and Dustin Road. Along with
the Prothonotary Warblers there continues to be a nice fallout of migrants.
I had mixed results for the prothonotaries. Oxbow Road has been overrun
with fishermen for several weeks which may explain the poor showing for
prothonotaries there. Virtually every piece of the shoreline that they can get
to had a fisherman. The result, I heard only two Prothonotary Warblers
singing there which is significantly below the average of 8 to 10 pairs in past
years. I did see that I’m going to need a large supply of trash bags as
some of the people fishing apparently mistook Oxbow Road with the City
landfill. Wiese Road was a draw. There was little trash there, in part because
some of the local residents have been collecting the trash and partly because
few people try to fish at the location. On the negative side, the new
stretch of the Ohio to Erie Bike Trail was run through the preserve using Wiese
Road. Time will tell how this impacts on the nesting Prothonotary Warblers.
Dustin Road has been used as a trash receptacle by many people too.
Although this area is well used by fishermen they have thus far stayed away from
the nest boxes and I located 14 male Prothonotary Warblers and a few
females who appear to be using the nest boxes. These are the three areas with
nest boxes that seem to have the worse abuse from people. Hopefully the rest
of the areas with nest boxes will fare better.
Activity other than Prothonotary warblers in the three areas included:
Waterfowl and waders: Double-crested Cormorant, Green Heron and Wood Duck
Birds of prey: Osprey, Red-shouldered Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk and Barred
Owl
Cuckoos: Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Flycatchers: Eastern Wood-Pewee, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Acadian
Flycatcher, Eastern Phoebe, Great Crested Flycatcher, and Eastern Kingbird
Vireos: White-eyed, Yellow-throated, Blue-headed Vireo, Warbling Vireo and
Red-eyed Vireo
Swallows: Cliff Swallow
Thrush: Grey-checked, Swainson’s and Wood Thrush
Warblers: Blue-winged Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, Nashville Warbler,
Northern Parula, Yellow Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Magnolia Warbler,
Yellow-rumped Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, Blackburnian Warbler,
Yellow-throated Warbler, Palm Warbler, Bay-breasted Warbler, Black-and-White
Warbler, American Redstart, Prothonotary Warbler, Louisiana Waterthrush,
Common Yellowthroat, Wilson’s Warbler and Canada Warbler
Tanagers and Sparrows: Scarlet Tanager, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow,
White-throated Sparrow, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Indigo Bunting, Orchard
Oriole and Baltimore Oriole
Charlie Bombaci
Hoover Nature Preserve
Delaware County
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