After being mostly house bound during the past week the weather finally broke and although fairly warm it was definitely better than 100 degrees with an air quality alert. My cardiologist stopped having fits and I had to stop worrying about what the recent storm did at the preserve and venture out to face the damage I knew would be there. It turned out to be even worse than I feared and I’ll be facing a major task to undo what Mother Nature has wrought upon my nest box trail. The one saving grace is that most of the nests had already fledged. It would have been worse if the storm had hit a week earlier. I also located the recently fledged Bald Eagles confirming they had made it through the storm. I’ll take that as the silver lining knowing how much worse things might have been. Area N took a terrible hit. Since 1993 it has endured multiple storms that destroyed trees, but still the easily accessed area along the old road bed south of Galena had managed to maintain a manageable canopy. Today it is mostly devoid of its canopy which was a major draw there for the Prothonotary Warblers. The back 40 of Area N also took a hit but still has a decent canopy over the swamp forest. I on the other hand now will have a maze of sunken downed trees to negotiate when I monitor the nest boxes. The trees snapped like match sticks or went over exposing the roots. I will have to scavenge through the area to inventory my nest boxes and recover those that went down with their tree. 2012 has been an odd year for me and the Prothonotary Warblers at Hoover Reservoir. Things started off on a positive note with good water levels and many singing males in mid April. Then the rains stopped, the temperatures went up and the water level went down. The water under the nest boxes was replaced by mud, making them more susceptible to predation. The lower water also caused problems for Shaune and me when we monitored areas by boat. The low water level caused the boat’s propeller to strike bottom in areas around the islands and in coves that are normally have adequately deep water. With all this the Prothonotary Warbler numbers were still encouraging as the nest season progressed. Then during the peak period for monitoring activity in the nests the heat wave dropped in on Ohio. Since I qualify for two of the “at risk” groups my activities were restricted. A year of ups and downs. I still managed, with Shaune’s help, to locate 116 Prothonotary Warbler territories at Hoover Reservoir. Lower numbers than usual, but the missed time and other factors likely caused us to miss many birds. The dropping water level at Hoover Reservoir has already exposed significant mudflats. This is a mixed blessing. Some of these areas are drying up rapidly and the habitat will not be suitable for the shorebirds as they migrate south. Instead the shorebirds will find sterile baked mud rather than moist mudflats with food to bulk up on. We need some rain or the shorebird migration just may be a bust. Some of the notable sightings today include: Double-crested Cormorant – several dozen perched on exposed snags. Osprey – I counted 6 soaring overhead. They looked like a kettle of TV’s after a makeover. Bald Eagle – Located two of the new fledglings from the east shore nest. Yellow-billed Cuckoo – sighted one near Big Walnut Creek. Red-headed Woodpecker – I checked on the nests in Area N and counted 6 adults Warblers -- Northern Parula (1), Yellow Warbler (1), Yellow-throated Warbler (1), Prothonotary Warbler (1 –low day for the year), and Louisiana Waterthrush (3). Charlie Bombaci Hoover Nature Preserve ______________________________________________________________________ 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]