Spring, by the calendar, starts tomorrow. Lots of folks have been
reporting spring "arrivals"--red-winged blackbirds, turkey vultures,
common grackles, etc., but all these species have been present winter
long.  Blackbirds can be found year-round: I've seen thousands on
January 1 Ohio CBCs, and hundreds of thousands of grackles at the same
time. Turkey vultures are more thinly distributed in the north, but they
do not disappear in winter. In fact, this winter has been so mild
overall that tundra swans--which yearly occur in the hundreds at refugia
like Ottawa NWR--have wintered in the thousands far more widely, causing
some observers to report "trumpeter swans" in the hundreds.  Ditto for
sandhill cranes; the local family here in Pickaway County stayed here
the whole winter except for a brief vacation, and the Franklin County
flock may have done likewise, like the Wayne Co birds. So many of the
species people are calling "firsts" or early arrivals are really only
routinely wintering birds, or laggards who saw no need to proceed
further south.
        Genuine spring arrivals will soon include woodcocks (but not snipes,
some of which wintered, and *not* nighthawks, which don't appear till
late April), yellowlegs, pectoral sandpipers, swallows, blue-winged
teals, loons, ospreys, fox sparrows, pine warblers and Louisiana
waterthrushes, pipits, phoebes, etc.  The warm winter has encouraged
larger than normal winter numbers of some cold-weather birds, but there
is little evidence that it's encouraged birds to accelerate their
northward migration, which is far more conservative than their
willingness to hang around in a warm winter.
Bill Whan
Columbus

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