With all the reports of rails and bitterns recently, I decided to hit the hatchery at dawn. I had barely gotten out of my car when I heard what I thought might be a rail, but with all the robins, red-wingeds, etc. I wasn't sure. I played a recording for Virginia rail - nothing. Then, I heard distinctly the call of a sora, and another answered from a more distant wetland area. I played sora just one time, and the closer one came out in the open briefly, just enough to recognize it.
Peter Cashwell, in his book The Verb "To Bird", says that surprise is the greatest pleasure he finds in birding. My day had just begun. In the third wetland area (toward Blind #4, for those familiar with the area), I heard what I thought was a wren. I waited several minutes, and I heard it again. Susan Nash and I had a marsh wren yesterday at Dillon, and this wasn't the right call. I played sedge wren, and up he popped - responding to the play. Wow, a new Licking Co. bird for me, making 195 lifetime, and 104 for this year.
The complete list:
Canada goose
wood duck
American wigeon
mallard
blue-winged teal
ring-necked duck
red-breasted merganser
pied-billed grebe
great blue heron
bald eagle (one on the nest)
red-tailed hawk
sora
American coot
killdeer
mourning dove
belted kingfisher
red-bellied woodpecker
yellow-bellied sapsucker
downy woodpecker
northern flicker
pileated woodpecker
eastern phoebe
blue jay
American crow
horned lark
northern rough-winged swallow
tree swallow
barn swallow
Carolina chickadee
tufted titmouse
white-breasted nuthatch
Carolina wren
winter wren
sedge wren
American robin
brown thrasher
European starling
yellow-rumped warbler
eastern towhee
American tree sparrow (quite a surprise!)
chipping sparrow
field sparrow
song sparrow
swamp sparrow
white-throated sparrow (two different ones singing - lovely!)
dark-eyed junco
northern cardinal
red-winged blackbird
common grackle
brown-headed cowbird
American goldfinch
house sparrow
Did I tell you that the Hebron Fish Hatchery is quickly becoming my favorite place to bird?
Margaret Bowman
Newark, Licking Co., OH
______________________________________________________________________
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]
|
