Howdy, Paul--
Glad to hear you're on the QT for Smith's longspur. The most recent
hotspots for this species--and this was a long time ago--were in the
vicinities of Seeds Rd and Zuber Roads south of Grove City (some
interesting contrasting habitat along Hiner Rd, too); one could also
look for gull gatherings nearby, of course. Most Ohio records come in
April, but as you'll read in the below account some have arrived in
March. Elsewhere, I edited a whole issue of the Ohio Cardinal wiht
articles treating this little bird in the region back in 2002, and if
you're really really interested I could photocopy the 28 salient pages
for you...
Best of luck,
Bill
Smith’s Longspur Calcarius pictus. Unknown to the older chroniclers
in Ohio, and only in the 1950s recognized as a rare spring migrant in
the county. Changes in agricultural practices, and perhaps a loss of
common knowledge about successfully finding these longspurs, have
diminished local reports to zero in recent decades. Maximum 250 in the
southwestern part of the county (especially Seeds Rd.) 4/15/1956 (AFN
10(4):338), with other flocks as large as 200 east of Grove City on
4/20/1965 (AFN 19(4):482, with 11 audio records #7347 at the Borror
Laboratory on the same date), 7-12 birds on 4/7/1968 (WCB 13:59) and 100
on 3/6/1971 (WCB 16:39) with 100 Lapland Longspurs. There have been no
verified county reports since the ‘70s, although spring flocks continue
to be found in several western Ohio counties as a result of careful
searching for these scarce and often well-camouflaged migrants.
Trautman (1968:310) called it a “regular, very local spring transient in
central and western Ohio.” There are several November records in Ohio,
but Franklin County has none from fall, when longspurs would be still
more difficult to detect. Most often reported here during April in
corn-stubble infested with foxtail (Setaria sp.) in large fields;
elsewhere they have also been found in grasslands associated with
airports. Smith’s have appeared regionally as late as 5/9/1956 nearby
in Pickaway County (WCB 1(2):18), where two flocks were found on
4/20/1965, the larger of ~300 birds (Trautman MS OSU Archives 6/4/65).
No winter records are known. There are no known Franklin County
specimens, but skins at OSUM come from nearby in Madison and Pickaway
counties. Median local arrival 4/1, departure 5/1 (Bent 237(3):1634).
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