While birding close to home yesterday, I ran across 2 Red-br.Nuthatches, including one coming to our backyard feeder.   The prior day, I had seen 2 other birds in central Columbus - 1 haunting the feeder at Greenlawn cemetery, another in the tiny urban park of Willow Branch.   All of these birds had 2 things in common:  they were around feeders, and they spent a lot of time in nearby spruce trees.  Other RBNU I've seen over the past month almost all fall into this pattern.  Watching the one at our feeder, the bird used a spruce tree both as a hiding place and as a place to cache seeds it took from the feeder.  It also would wedge the seeds in bark crevices in order to hammer them into smaller pieces.  It could be that the combo of feeders & spruce trees is a big attractor for these birds, and birders with that combo might watch for lingering RBNU.

I also biked around Woodside Green, Academy Park, and the Old Ridenour Road parks of Gahanna, all along Big Walnut Creek in a strip informally called the Gahanna Greenbelt.  Many of the highlights were already touched upon by Bob & Elaine McNulty, but I'll add some numbers. Bird diversity was good, but still skewed towards temperate migrants.  In 2 hours, I found

Barred Owl - 2 calling back & forth in Woodside Green Park
Cooper's Hawk - 1
Chimney Swifts - 4+ flying over riparian woods
Swallows - small #s of Rough-winged, Tree, and Barn, usually 2-3
Pileated Woodpecker - a pair, but I didn't see the cavity excavation
E.Phoebe - 3
White-eyed Vireo - 1 singing in the chalk dumps section of Academy Park
Red-eyed Vireo - 1 along Old Ridenour Rd.
House Wren - 5 singing in different locations
Winter Wren - 1 in chalk dumps section
Ruby-cr.Kinglets - 5-6, many singing
Blue-gray Gnatcatchers - 15+ They seem to be having an excellent migration.
Hermit Thrush - 2 in Woodside Green Park
Swainson's Thrush - 1 along Old Ridenour Road
Gray Catbird - only 2 so far
Parula Warbler - 1 singing along Old Ridenour Rd
Nashville Warbler - 2 singing along Old Ridenour
Yellow-thr.Warbler - at least 4 singing along different parts of Big Walnut Creek
Yellow-rumped Warbler - still the most common, with 25-30 birds
Palm Warbler - 4+ in the chalk dumps section of Academy Park
Pine Warbler - 1 singing in Woodside Green Park
E.Towhee - 4 different individuals at different locations
Chipping Sparrows - small flocks at several locations
White-throated Sparrows - small flocks at many locations, perhaps 50 total

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