This  morning I began recovery work on the Old Sunbury Road (Galena, 
Delaware Cty)  section of my Prothonotary Warbler nest box trail. Carnage would be 
a kind  description of what the recent storm did to this area along the 
northeastern  shore of Hoover Reservoir. The old road that goes north from the 
entrance to the  Eastshore Yacht Club to the old bridge base at Big Walnut 
Creek had 14 large  trees down across it. Many, many more were down in the 
habitat between the road  and the reservoir’s shore. I lost some nest boxes 
but I don’t have a count yet  as I didn’t feel like crawling over, under and 
through the fallen trees. The  scene reminded me of the obstacle course I 
had to do when I was in the army.  Reinstalling new boxes will be no better 
with all the downed trees. But the nest  box trail will recover with some 
elbow grease and  determination. 
I  looked for the Bald Eagle nest but I could not find it. This is like 
looking for  a Volkswagen bus in a tree, very hard to miss if it is there. I 
fear the nest  went down, but with all the other fallen trees and branches who 
could tell if a  nest were in the middle. At least the young eagles had 
fledged and to my comfort  I found them perched in a cottonwood tree. 
The hike north along  the nest box trail wore me down so I decided to take 
the easy route back to the  car. Go along the reservoir shoreline since the 
water is down and the mudflats  are exposed. This turned out to be a good 
choice as I found 8 species of  shorebirds as I walked south to the car. They 
were Killdeer  (80+), Lesser Yellowlegs (14), Solitary Sandpiper (3), 
Spotted Sandpiper (7),  Semipalmated Sandpiper (10-15), Least Sandpiper (8-10), 
Stilt Sandpiper (2), and  Short-billed Dowitcher (4 – still mostly in breeding 
plumage). The first wave of  migrating shorebirds is showing up and their 
friends should be following  soon. 

Final footnote, unusual for me, 1 Prothonotary Warbler. I think my guys  
headed south early after the crazy weather. 
Charlie  Bombaci 
Hoover  Nature Preserve

______________________________________________________________________

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]