Hello!

Hopefully, folks are enjoying our cooler, albeit damper, weather of late.  I know I do.  Here’s what is happening in our Carroll County 2016 survey.

Overall, September was not much different than the summer months in terms of activity on our part.  The spring flurry has given way to trying to play “clean up” locating missed species during April and May.  We had some success in this regard adding 3 new species to our overall group effort, bringing our total species count to 213 on the year.

On 9/1, I located at Black-crowned Night Heron at Atwood Lake along Avalon Rd.  There was historical data to support this species being seen at Atwood, but it took 9 months before locating one.  It was a juvenile bird, so it could have been migrating through.  Fortunately, it was pretty content hanging out where it was and my parters Ben and Kent were able to get there to see it.  That same evening, Common Nighthawks were working over the lake, so Kent was able to see that species too.  

Our efforts to try to locate Connecticut and Golden-winged Warbler, as well as Thrush and Flycatcher species took us back to Stillfork Swamp and the “O-Zone” (an area of roads beginning with the letter O east of Wattsville) where we had good luck in the spring.  We dipped on adding new warblers, but we were able to finally pick up Gray-cheeked Thrush at Stillfork.  On our way to begin our walk at Stillfork on 9/9, we were looking at Killdeer and Sparrows at a farm adjacent to the nature preserve when 2 beautiful American Golden Plovers dropped in right in front of us.  What a treat that was.  Shorebirds have been extremely difficult to locate in this unglaciated (except some extreme northern areas) county, so we felt very fortunate.  If you don’t know much about this remarkable birds annual migration, do a little research and you’ll be stunned at what you’ll learn.  

When it was all said and done, I had 18 species of warblers in September, which is pretty good considering the weather patterns continue to create difficult migration patterns that seem to disperse the birds widely.  We also had 7 species of Flycatchers during the month and I was able to get caught up to Kent and Ben when we saw several Yellow-bellied Flycatchers at Stillfork Swamp over the course of 2 walks.  Thrush activity has been pretty regular with most birds being seen foraging in wild cherry and other fruit-bearing trees.

As September ended, I tallied 102 species in Carroll.  The county fell to 20th (from 17th in August) in Ohio in 2016 in terms of species seen, primarily as other areas with better shorebird habitat surpassed our efforts.  Still, I do not think Carroll has been birded quite this much since Forrest Buchanan, with the help of Jerry and Willard Talkington, did their follow up work to Buchanan’s early research in Jefferson and Carroll Counties.    Carroll remains 55th in Ohio in eBird for historical species reported.  As of 9/30, 953 checklists were generated in eBird in 2016.

That’s the news from Carroll County on this cool October morning.  If you are a fan of fall festivals, next weekend (Oct 7,8,9) the Algonquin Mill festival will be taking place on SR 332 south of Carrollton.  

Jon Cefus
Carroll Co.  


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