It’s my favorite time of the year. Adding to a binge of birding some of my favorite locations in search of migrants it’s now time to pay attention to my nest boxes at Hoover Reservoir. I began making a circuit of the trail this morning visiting Oxbow Road, Wiese Road and Dustin Road. Along with the Prothonotary Warblers there continues to be a nice fallout of migrants. I had mixed results for the prothonotaries. Oxbow Road has been overrun with fishermen for several weeks which may explain the poor showing for prothonotaries there. Virtually every piece of the shoreline that they can get to had a fisherman. The result, I heard only two Prothonotary Warblers singing there which is significantly below the average of 8 to 10 pairs in past years. I did see that I’m going to need a large supply of trash bags as some of the people fishing apparently mistook Oxbow Road with the City landfill. Wiese Road was a draw. There was little trash there, in part because some of the local residents have been collecting the trash and partly because few people try to fish at the location. On the negative side, the new stretch of the Ohio to Erie Bike Trail was run through the preserve using Wiese Road. Time will tell how this impacts on the nesting Prothonotary Warblers. Dustin Road has been used as a trash receptacle by many people too. Although this area is well used by fishermen they have thus far stayed away from the nest boxes and I located 14 male Prothonotary Warblers and a few females who appear to be using the nest boxes. These are the three areas with nest boxes that seem to have the worse abuse from people. Hopefully the rest of the areas with nest boxes will fare better. Activity other than Prothonotary warblers in the three areas included: Waterfowl and waders: Double-crested Cormorant, Green Heron and Wood Duck Birds of prey: Osprey, Red-shouldered Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk and Barred Owl Cuckoos: Yellow-billed Cuckoo Flycatchers: Eastern Wood-Pewee, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Acadian Flycatcher, Eastern Phoebe, Great Crested Flycatcher, and Eastern Kingbird Vireos: White-eyed, Yellow-throated, Blue-headed Vireo, Warbling Vireo and Red-eyed Vireo Swallows: Cliff Swallow Thrush: Grey-checked, Swainson’s and Wood Thrush Warblers: Blue-winged Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, Nashville Warbler, Northern Parula, Yellow Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, Blackburnian Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler, Palm Warbler, Bay-breasted Warbler, Black-and-White Warbler, American Redstart, Prothonotary Warbler, Louisiana Waterthrush, Common Yellowthroat, Wilson’s Warbler and Canada Warbler Tanagers and Sparrows: Scarlet Tanager, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Indigo Bunting, Orchard Oriole and Baltimore Oriole Charlie Bombaci Hoover Nature Preserve Delaware County ______________________________________________________________________ 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]