My home, Valhalla Acres Fiber Farm, is home to 2 humans, 26 sheep, 2 goats,
5 horses, one dog and 11 cats (12 if you count the feral mother of two
domesticated kittens). It is apparently also home or close to home for 60
bird species seen or heard here by me since dawn on June 21. The grounds
consist of 57 acres: 30 acres of upland pastures and successional fields
surrounded by forested ravines, with forest ranging from young to mature.
It sits on Flint Ridge, which here constitutes the divide between the
Licking and Muskingum River drainages. There are no conifers except for a
couple stunted, out-of-place cedars, and no pond or other extensive
wetlands, although there are farm ponds nearby. The property and immediate
vicinity were never mined extensively for coal, and so it is fairly
well-watered, with a good, reasonably shallow well, and numerous seeps and
springs. Water runs (or at least trickles) year round in the deepest two of
the three ravines. We feed black oil sunflower, nyger and suet, and we have
a couple hummingbird feeders as well.
I consider it to be a very average Ohio Appalachian habitat, and I flatter
myself to think that it probably receives better than average observation.
The post-solstice "yard" list:
great blue heron (somewhat regular overflights)
turkey vulture
Cooper's hawk
red-shouldered hawk (heard daily)
red-tailed hawk (regularly soaring)
wild turkey (flushed yesterday while I was picking raspberries)
killdeer
mourning dove
chimney swift
ruby-throated hummingbird
red-headed woodpecker (commoner this year than previous, no nest tree found)
red-bellied woodpecker
downy woodpecker
hairy woodpecker
northern flicker
pileated woodpecker
eastern wood-pewee
Acadian flycatcher
eastern phoebe
eastern kingbird
red-eyed vireo
blue jay
American crow
tree swallow
barn swallow
tufted titmouse
Carolina chickadee
white-breasted nuthatch
Carolina wren
house wren
eastern bluebird
American robin
wood thrush
gray catbird
northern mockingbird
brown thrasher
European starling
blue-winged warbler (I heard yesterday, for the first time in over a month)
yellow warbler
cerulean warbler
American redstart
ovenbird
common yellowthroat
hooded warbler
yellow-breasted chat
scarlet tanager
northern cardinal
rose-breasted grosbeak (annually in the woods, this year a regular feeder
bird)
indigo bunting
eastern towhee
field sparrow
chipping sparrow
song sparrow
brown-headed cowbird
red-winged blackbird
common grackle
Baltimore oriole
house finch
American goldfinch
house sparrow
There are probably a couple others around, such as Louisiana waterthrush,
which I regularly hear singing until early June.
Currently, for all seasons over 13 years, the "yard list" stands at 137.
Nice place!
Bob Evans
Geologist, etc.
Valhalla Acres Fiber Farm
Hopewell Township, Muskingum County
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