Greetings!

I had the good fortune to spend Tuesday birding with two wonderful birders, Su Snyder and Sandra Griffiths.  We had the primary goals of seeing the Spotted Towhee and Ross’s Goose, but alas! we struck out on both accounts, although not due to any lack of effort.  The weather was a little cold with temperatures staying in the low to mid 20’s and occasional snow flurries and even a small squall or two.

We began on County Line Road and found 3 Wood Ducks swimming with an American Wigeon, several American Black Ducks, a couple of Mallards, as well as a few Canada Geese.  As we proceeded away from that spot, we got a look at a pair of Red-tailed hawks circling a farm field.  I lost count of the number of RTH we saw, but it was a LOT!  At that point, we got a look at a couple of large birds flying toward us.  Su quickly identified them as Sandhill Cranes, the first of 4 different pairs we would see that day. We then made our way toward Wilderness Rd.  On our way, we saw a Wild Turkey and a lovely female American Kestrel.

Wilderness Rd. was flooded and covered with ice in the middle, so we drove as far as we could on the East end of the road and scanned the area.  Right away, we had a nice look at a Dark-morph Rough-legged Hawk and we soon saw a Light-morph Rough-legged Hawk.  A few moments later, we saw THREE Short-eared Owls working the large fields to the South.  Su was able to get them in the scope so we could believe our eyes!  It was certainly unusual to see the Short-eared Owls flying around at noon.  We talked about how they were most likely flushed out from their roosts, possibly from activity at what appears to be a pallet operation nearby.

We then made our way around the flooded area to get a look at the other end of Wilderness Rd.  On our way, we found an area of open water along Blachleyville Rd. (Rt. 95).  We pulled off and got out the scopes.  We identified 45 Canvasback, 10 Redhead, 50 Ring-necked Duck, 3 Greater Scaup, 4 Lesser Scaup, 2 Bufflehead, and 1 Ruddy Duck.  Not bad for a pretty small area of open water.

On the West end of Wilderness Road it was nothing short of epic as we looked North across the tilled farm field. There must have been more water than was visible from our location because the counts we came up with indicated an incredible concentration of waterfowl.  We are certain that there was much more than what we could see, but distance and the hunger pangs of lunchtime kept our time there relatively brief.  Su decided to tackle the numbers of Northern Pintail and came up with a count of 850.  In addition to these, we counted 210 American Wigeon, 200 Ring-necked Ducks, 100 Mallard, 86 Tundra Swan (Sandra was tasked with counting these), 65 Gadwall, 25 Canada Geese (yes, that few!), 8 American Black Ducks and 8 Canvasback.  As we drove away, we were treated to the sweet sounds and a nice look at a group of 4 Horned Larks and a Dark-morph Rough-legged Hawk kiting.  We also saw a group of Starlings working along the road with a strange-looking light gray bird mixed in with them.  I have some photos to share with Su and Sandra so we can try to figure out the ID…it may have been a leucistic Cowbird, but we do not know yet.  As we drove to lunch, we had a look at a good sized flock of Red-winged Blackbirds, but did not see any other birds mixed in with them.

At Killbuck Marsh, we got a great look at 2 more Sandhill Cranes, one of which seemed to be favoring one of it’s legs.  We hope it will be OK.  I was able to get a few good shots of these birds, which I will share on Birding Ohio on Facebook.  In addition to the Cranes, we saw a nice group of 8 Hooded Merganser, a Great Blue Heron, a Common Goldeneye (female), A couple of Northern Flickers, a Red-headed woodpecker, and an American Kestrel (male).

Along Prairie Lane Wetlands it was all about Canada Geese.  We estimated the number at 1000+.  We also saw a Trumpeter Swan, 4 Gadwall, 7 American Wigeon, 14 Common Merganser, a few American Black Duck, 1 American Coot, and 20 Mallard.

We drove south of Millersburg to the Lake Buckhorn area to see if we could locate a Black Vulture.  We did not have any luck with them, but we did see 55 Turkey Vulture circling their way to their nighttime roost somewhere near the lake.  We concluded our day with one more trip back to Wilderness Rd. to see if I could maybe get a picture of the Short-eared Owls.  The light was not good, but we still were treated to looks at 5 Northern Harrier working the same fields as we saw the Owls earlier that day.  There were 4 males and 1 female working the area, which was something to see.  Just before we left, a Short-eared Owl popped up and started searching for dinner, which was our cue to get home to dinner with our families as well.  We chose to head back to the sounds of songs from the movie O Brother Where Art Thou...

It was a great day.  I picked up 35 new species for me in Wayne County and 2 new species in Holmes County.

Thanks so much to Sandra and Su.  It was great fun and I cannot wait to get back down there again!


Jon Cefus


“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” 
-Douglas Adams


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