Robert Royse
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www.roysephotos.comI spent some time at Deer Creek both today and yesterday checking out various areas. First of all the park opened the gate for birders today to go down the road west of the beach to scan from the bluffs. Hopefully this will be a weekly event. You are always free to walk to the picnic sites along the bluff to view the southern part of the reservoir, but if you want to drive there, you need to visit on Mondays apparently. We owe a big thanks to the park staff for giving us this privilege. 

There was a big difference between the 2 days. Here's a general summary :

Loons and grebes :

Numbers way down both days from last week with only a few each of Common Loon, Pied-billed and Horned Grebes. Melanie Shuter had a Red-necked last week.

Waterfowl :
With hunting going on numbers were nice and low. Small flocks of Hooded Mergansers. Lesser Scaups, and Ruddy Ducks kept well away from the decoys.

Gulls :
The usual 3 species with Bonaparte's in the thousands both days. They were quite a spectacle to watch, but nothing more unusual was in the mix.

Shorebirds : 
A huge change between yesterday and today. Yesterday there must have been 300 Killdeers and 50 Dunlins at the mudflats at the N end of the reservoir. There were joined by one each of Wilson's Snipe and Least Sandpiper. Today the number dwindled to maybe a couple of dozen Killdeers, one Dunlin, and one G Yellowlegs. Yesterday a Peregrine Falcon flaying over the reservoir kept all shorebirds and Bonies nervous. Today a Merlin kept at least the shorebirds nervous. Those falcons just may have sent to shorebirds to another part of the reservoir when I passed by. Usually Killdeers at least remain abundant until the first solid freeze and I'm sure plenty will be around for a good while longer.

Waders:
At the mudflats at the N end of the reservoir yesterday there were at least 40 Great Blue Herons with the number growing to 60 today. 6 Great Egrets were in the N pond along Dick Road yesterday (which is now dry). I didn't see them today, but they may have moved to the S pond (which I didn't check out either day).

Sparrows :
I never made it to the smartweed jungle in tghe middle wetlands either day unfortunately, but good numbers of the expected species were widespread in the N part of the wildlife area. I saw my first Am. Tree Sparrow of the season today. In a few weeks they'll be the most abundant bird at Deer Creek and remain so through the winter.


Finches, last but not least :
It should be obvious to everyone by now that this year is bringing in a huge influx of Pine Siskins to the state, even to rural Pickaway County. I have been hearing flyover flocks on several occasions for the past few weeks. Yesterday I found a nice number of them in the conifers along the entry road to the state park campgrounds. Then today I found the largest flock of them I have ever encountered in Ohio in a sunflower tract. I hadn't checked out the sunflower tract yet this year because there were always too many hunter's trucks parked by it. This afternoon I didn't see any trucks, so I went and had a look at this tract which is along Egypt Pike Rd. N of Dick Road. The sunflowers are on the east side of the road and stretch south for about a half mile. There are still plenty of seeds on the sunflowers making it one enormous oil sunflower feeder. In past years I've enjoyed poking around these tracts and have always found American Goldfinches to be the most abundant species in them :

http://www.roysephotos.com/AmericanGoldfinch.html

It didn't take long to find a cloud of goldfinches, but today there were other sounds, Pine Siskins, in the mix, at least 100 of them as well as perhaps 2 dozen House Finches and a couple of Purple Finches. Lurking in the trees on both sides of the tract were at least 2 Cooper's Hawks and a Sharp-shinned Hawk that kept stirring the flocks up and sending them elsewhere. Also arriving while I was there was a dove hunter ready with his bucket to fill up. Walking along the edges of the sunflower field is like like walking on a tile made out of plastic shotgun shell casings. Yeah, yeah I know all hunters are noble and honorable outdoorsmen, but these guys must be getting too fat and lazy from all the squab they're eating to pick up after themselves. It's an absolutely disgusting sight. Fortunately when I was there I only saw a couple of Mourning Doves. Both times I flushed them they took off in a cloud of goldfinches and siskins. I just have to wonder how many finches were killed or injured when those thousands of shotgun shells were fired. Dove season runs from Sept. 1 through Nov. 9 and again from Dec. 20 - Jan.1, so it's almost over for now. After next week it should be a great place to check out regularly since most of the flower heads are still half full or more. An interesting variety of birds show up to feast in the middle of these fields including sparrows and typical woodland birds such as chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, and woodpeckers.

Bob Royse




Robert Royse
[log in to unmask]
www.roysephotos.com

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