First a word about why I'm updating this local list here. I believe our
county-level effort is relevant to other parts of Ohio. Franklin County
is centrally located, and has few exotic habitats but a lot of local
observers, so its bird occurrences serve well to represent those
statewide. We have only a few records of chuck-will's-widows, and a few
of Iceland gulls, but we regularly see pretty much all the species more
widespread.
        I've noticed some good observers in the north say migration is later
than usual this year, and others in the south say many species appeared
earlier than usual. In some sense both are right I suppose, but our
results of 37 warbler species *by 9 May*, and 225 species overall
(pretty much lacking the winter/spring specialties of the Lake Erie
shore), suggest that overall northbound migrants moved earlier statewide
than in decades past. Credible reports of five OBRC review species in a
bit more than four months suggest not a lot, but at least what is
possible given an area in Ohio with a modest endowment of habitats but
an excellent complement of birders.
        I started collecting local records with an estimated list of 278
species, and we're likely to exceed that by quite a few. Additional
species we could more or less easily find this month include:
        n. bobwhite
        snowy/cattle egrets, little blue heron
        king rail
        avocet, m. godwit, turnstone, sanderling, w-rumped sandpiper,
                short-billed dowitcher
        king rail
        laughing/Franklin's gulls
        black/common tern
        barn owl
        yellow-bellied flycatcher
        Bell's vireo
        sedge wren
        Henslow's sparrow
        dickcissel

I ask local folks to keep an eye open for these 22. Notice that most are
species of wetlands, and most of the rest of open grasslands, and that
only one--the flycatcher--remains likely to be found in May's popular
wood-warbler habitats.
Bird on,
Bill Whan
Columbus, Ohio



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