After  being mostly house bound during the past week the weather finally 
broke and  although fairly warm it was definitely better than 100 degrees with 
an air  quality alert.  My cardiologist  stopped having fits and I had to 
stop worrying about what the recent storm did  at the preserve and venture 
out to face the damage I knew would be there. It  turned out to be even worse 
than I feared and I’ll be facing a major task to  undo what Mother Nature 
has wrought upon my nest box trail. The one saving grace  is that most of the 
nests had already fledged. It would have been worse if the  storm had hit a 
week earlier. I also located the recently fledged Bald Eagles  confirming 
they had made it through the storm. I’ll take that as the silver  lining 
knowing how much worse things might have been. 
Area  N took a terrible hit. Since 1993 it has endured multiple storms that 
destroyed  trees, but still the easily accessed area along the old road bed 
south of Galena  had managed to maintain a manageable canopy. Today it is 
mostly devoid of its  canopy which was a major draw there for the 
Prothonotary Warblers. The back 40  of Area N also took a hit but still has a decent 
canopy over the swamp forest. I  on the other hand now will have a maze of 
sunken downed trees to negotiate when  I monitor the nest boxes. The trees 
snapped like match sticks or went over  exposing the roots. I will have to 
scavenge through the area to inventory my  nest boxes and recover those that went 
down with their  tree. 
2012  has been an odd year for me and the Prothonotary Warblers at Hoover 
Reservoir.  Things started off on a positive note with good water levels and 
many singing  males in mid April. Then the rains stopped, the temperatures 
went up and the  water level went down. The water under the nest boxes was 
replaced by mud,  making them more susceptible to predation. The lower water 
also caused problems  for Shaune and me when we monitored areas by boat. The 
low water level caused  the boat’s propeller to strike bottom in areas 
around the islands and in coves  that are normally have adequately deep water. 
With all this the Prothonotary  Warbler numbers were still encouraging as the 
nest season progressed. Then  during the peak period for monitoring activity 
in the nests the heat wave  dropped in on Ohio. Since I qualify for two of 
the “at risk” groups my  activities were restricted. A year of ups and 
downs. I still managed, with  Shaune’s help, to locate 116 Prothonotary Warbler 
territories at Hoover  Reservoir. Lower numbers than usual, but the missed 
time and other factors  likely caused us to miss many birds.  
The  dropping water level at Hoover Reservoir has already exposed 
significant  mudflats. This is a mixed blessing. Some of these areas are drying up 
rapidly  and the habitat will not be suitable for the shorebirds as they 
migrate south.  Instead the shorebirds will find sterile baked mud rather than 
moist mudflats  with food to bulk up on. We need some rain or the shorebird 
migration just may  be a bust. 
Some  of the notable sightings today include:  
Double-crested  Cormorant – several dozen perched on exposed snags. 
Osprey  – I counted 6 soaring overhead. They looked like a kettle of TV’s 
after a  makeover. 
Bald  Eagle – Located two of the new fledglings from the east shore  nest. 
Yellow-billed  Cuckoo – sighted one near Big Walnut Creek. 
Red-headed  Woodpecker – I checked on the nests in Area N and counted 6  
adults 
Warblers  -- Northern Parula (1), Yellow Warbler (1), Yellow-throated 
Warbler (1),  Prothonotary Warbler (1 –low day for the year), and Louisiana 
Waterthrush  (3). 
Charlie  Bombaci 
Hoover  Nature Preserve

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