Harrison County is blessed with as many varied habitats as any Ohio county: big reservoirs, mature forest tracts, farmland, successional habitats, etc. Its special feature is grassland, enormous Wyomingesque stretches of grasses studded with occasional mottes of trees and Russian olive seedlings struggling with the depauperate soil, rolling across a shadow landscape of ancient forests removed decades ago in the quest for coal. Today these ravaged lands are again being disturbed by energy companies having second thoughts about that second-rate coal they passed up in the ’50s, and new fracking towers are sprouting across the land.
The Avids had visited here before, in search of upland sandpipers that seem to prefer Harrison Conty’s grasslands to the others—think of the Wilds—so numerous in the middle-eastern counties. In conversation with local naturalist Scott Pendleton, he mentioned so many other alluring species that we eagerly accepted his offer to show us not only the uppies but eyebrow-lifting unexpected species like short-eared owls and merlins and harriers, along with many grassland birds, including chances at local common ravens.
The chances of such a rich offering of interesting birds, especially in the usually pedestrian month of June, brought 21 of us to carpool to Cadiz, where we met Scott and four local birders, organized our gang into seven cars and set out for the grasslands west of the county airport, where Scott ably described the local population of Bartamia longicauda, its habits and habitats, local history, etc. Some of our more sentimental members were deprived of tear-inducing views of chicks, but five pairs were in the immediate area, and we were soon seeing adults perching on fenceposts, crossing the gravel road, and circling us warily on the wing, calling as nests were still active. Bobolinks were all around us, and we counted seven harriers, most of them wobblier young ones, thereby verifying several local nests. Peterjohn pronounced nesting harriers much reduced in Ohio, and now “casual to rare.” These rarities, as well as others seen later in the day, have been studied and scrupulously reported by Scott and his local crew.
Our next stop was a wider wilder grassland, with some woodlots and highwalls, where Scott had been monitoring a pair of short-eared owls (another species deemed by Peterjohn as “accidental to casual and very sporadic summer residents, averaging three to six sightings each decade since the 1920s…Confirmed nesting reports are exceptionally rare).” One owl spooked as we arrived, moving from a spot Scott suspected as a nest site to grasses across the road, but we did not see the other. Needless to say, we kept our distance. We did not see a merlin, but its apparent roost was visible in pines nearby. It would be a stretch to call any number of Henslow’s sparrows as deafening, but the multitudes here and of the nearly as delicate calls of grasshopper sparrows were omnipresent. We soon located a few locally rare dickcissels, which were the big sighting of the day for the jaded local experts. The road soon became impassable for cars, and we walked on to a pair of sizeable ponds, where we saw various herons, etc., and two nests of spotted sandpipers, patrolled by a diligent female, with at least seven diminutive chicks and their attendant males.
We passed the early afternoon hours in more familiar habitats, in woodlands and farm country, ending up with an extended walk in wild spots along the shore of Lake Clendening, where even in the hottest part of the day we fluffed the day list with a lot of less exotic—to us—nesting species. This was a day we could never have duplicated by ourselves, and we owe local expert Pendleton and his sharp-eyed local colleagues a great deal….hats off! We ended the day in mid-afternoon, with a list of 85 species seen. That list follows.
Canada goose
Mallard
Wild turkey
great blue heron
green heron
turkey vulture
osprey
northern harrier (7)
red-tailed hawk
American kestrel
killdeer
spotted sandpiper (9)
upland sandpiper (7)
American woodcock
rock pigeon
mourning dove
yellow-billed cuckoo
short-eared owl
chimney swift
belted kingfisher
red-headed woodpecker
red-bellied woodpecker
northern flicker
eastern wood-pewee
Acadian flycatcher
willow flycatcher
eastern phoebe
great crested flycatcher
eastern kingbird
white-eyed vireo
yellow-throated vireo
warbling vireo
red-eyed vireo
blue jay
American crow
horned lark
purple martin
northern rough-winged swallow
bank swallow
barn swallow
carolina chickadee
tufted titmouse
white-breasted nuthatch
carolina wren
house wren
blue-gray gnatcatcher
eastern bluebird
wood thrush
gray catbird
northern mockingbird
brown thrasher
European starling
cedar waxwing
blue-winged warbler
yellow warbler
yellow-throated warbler
American redstart
ovenbird
Louisiana waterthrush
common yellowthroat
hooded warbler
yellow-breasted chat
scarlet tanager
eastern towhee
chipping sparrow
field sparrow
vesper sparrow
savannah sparrow
grasshopper sparrow
Henslow’s sparrow
song sparrow
swamp sparrow
northern cardinal
rose-breasted grosbeak
indigo bunting
dickcissel
bobolink
eastern meadowlark
common grackle
brown-headed cowbird
Baltimore oriole
house finch
American goldfinch
house sparrow