This week, the January 2010 issue of Birding magazine has been landing in mailboxes. This is the one that features Jen Brumfield's fabulous artwork of warblers along the boardwalk at Magee Marsh Wildlife Area, Ohio. The same issue has two articles that describe spring birding in northwest Ohio, as well as information about the Biggest Week In American Birding (BWIAB), coming to the area this May. So there's quite a focus on Ohio birding. A few people who are not familiar with the local situation have privately expressed concern that the BWIAB might somehow have a negative impact on the prime birding destination at Magee Marsh. As an individual who birds this area all the time and who is involved in the event, I thought I should address these concerns in a public forum. First, the entities planning the event -- Black Swamp Bird Observatory, Tropical Birding Tours, Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, Kaufman Field Guides, and the Ohio DNR Division of Wildlife, plus our major sponsor the American Birding Association -- are all heavily committed to bird conservation. In the many months of planning and preparation so far, every decision has been made with an eye to its effect on the area and on the birds. (It's not as if we invited a crowd to come and then said, "Gee, I wonder if this will have an impact.") There are places where you don't want to bring in a lot of birders: for example, a patch of fragile habitat with rare nesting birds. There are places where you can bring in as many birders as you wish: for example, a pier where gulls congregate offshore. The Magee Marsh boardwalk area is actually the latter kind of situation. At the boardwalk area, the birders follow the rules and stick to the boardwalk itself or the edges of the parking lots. The migrant birds, intent on foraging, come within a few feet of their admirers; we've all seen the warblers dangling on twigs at eye level, oblivious to all the ooohs and aaahs and camera clicks. If there are shy birds that want to avoid humans, the woodlot at Magee has plenty of area where such birds can hide away and remain unseen. It's a brilliant situation for getting lots of people close to lots of warblers and other migrants, with no damage to the habitat and virtually no disturbance to the birds. Concerns about impacts on the resource or "loving the place to death" simply don't apply here. Of course it's true that the boardwalk gets crowded sometimes. (In my experience this happens mainly on International Migratory Bird Day itself, and mainly at the west end. I have spent the whole IMBD back there more than once and have seen tons of birds despite the crowds. It's not the place to be if you seek solitude, but it's definitely cool if you want to see how popular birding has become.) But all of the partners in the BWIAB are dedicated to improving the experience for visitors, and for that reason we have all been working to make people aware of the many other fine birding spots in this immediate area. During the Biggest Week, many of the activities will be taking place next door at Ottawa NWR, a fabulous birding area that is still under-birded, and other field trips will be spanning the whole area from Oak Openings east to Huron and Kelley's Island. We already have been distributing birding maps for places like Ottawa NWR, Metzger Marsh, and Sheldon Marsh, and more will be available before spring. Of course everyone will want to pay a visit to the famous boardwalk; but our efforts may actually decrease the number of birders on the boardwalk itself at any given time, while increasing the birding coverage of other nearby areas. BSBO and other partners have been working to publicize birding in this area -- not just to birders, but especially to local governments and businesses. For the first time, many in the local communities recognize the economic value of catering to birders and protecting habitat for migratory birds. The birders have been coming here for a long time, but only within the last five years has there been this effort to connect the dots and promote the value and importance of birding to the local economy. This can have huge long-term benefits for conservation! To draw the connection to conservation in another way, I'd encourage anyone interested to go to the website -- http://biggestweekinamericanbirding.com/ -- and click on the link for "Conservation Initiatives." The partners involved are using this birding event to promote a series of worthwhile approaches, from carbon offsets to shade-grown coffee, and with a particular emphasis on Ohio's new Wildlife Legacy Stamp, an exciting brand-new program being introduced by the Division of Wildlife this year. At any rate, I wanted to assure everyone that the planning for the Biggest Week In American Birding has been done in a responsible way by people who are deeply committed to bird conservation. And to birding. We are trying out an innovative approach, putting on a birding event in which all the activities range from very inexpensive to absolutely free. We have a wide variety of programs, lots of free birdwalks led by world-class birders, many activities for brand-new beginners, and an underlying focus on conservation. I would hope that all Ohio birders would be supportive of the aims of this event (and I already know that a lot of you are!). We are confident that the "impact" of the BWIAB will be positive all the way around, and will do great things for the area, for the birders, and for the birds. Kenn Kaufman Oak Harbor, Ohio ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]