It’s pretty hard to go wrong when a Saturday in late April’s 65º and sunny, and you’re heading to fabled birding spots in southern Ohio with friends eager to greet arriving migrant birds. Sometimes it’s easy to succeed, even in the tension-fraught competitive world of highly-compensated bird trip leaders. This time two of our regular leaders were off in more exotic climes, birding away, and yours truly eagerly sought the help of Avids leader emeritus Bill Heck to round out a southern swing for spring migrants on behalf of eight of us.
Spring Valley Wildlife Area, a wet spot developed long ago to foster muskrats, neighbor to a gunnery range and constructed in part out of discarded appliances used as reefs in the deeper water, was our first stop. It’s still a magical place this time of year. The air was bright and windless, and birdsong accompanied us throughout our visit. Marsh birds, while not numerous or always easy to see, were present, and eventually observed. Soras and a Virginia rail were seen as well as heard, along with the expected sparrows, wrens, swallows, and some waterfowl. A sandhill crane, one of a probable nesting pair (likely a first record for the county) was also seen from the boardwalk. We switched to the other side of the lake as it was first painted by sunlight, where we eyed a rival birding gang from the Aullwood Audubon Center, arrived before us and scanning the trees along the dike.
Tyros, they struggled with and marveled at a yellow warbler while we racked up lots of warblers, including the local prothonotaries, both orioles, vireos, flycatchers, etc., but everyone had a good time. We left while we still anticipated time to find more birds in song near Cincinnati, after saying farewell to two of our companions who had to get home early.
Led by Bill Heck, we explored the attractive Miami Whitewater Forest, first looking and listening in some nice mature upland hardwood forest, where we picked up the earliest tanager, broad-winged hawk, and several vireos: red-eyed, yellow-throated, blue-headed, green-tailed (just kidding on the last one). We next wandered a mixed forest of maple and cedar and sassafras and tuliptree, where the best find was a singing Kentucky warbler, scarce this early. Finally, we went out to the Miami Whitewater Wetlands, where we found a few new waterfowl, a swamp-haunting turkey, and small numbers of hedgerow birds in an enjoyable walk along wet fields while adding to the day’s list.
Now, about that list. Normally we like to bring home a list of a hundred or more on this date. This year many northbound passerines were running a few days late, and many waterfowl had departed unexpectedly early, so we fell into a sort of trough of seasonal numbers. Also, the day’s list suffered from the fact that we spent so much of our time in marshy habitats (not that we did all that well there, missing bitterns, green heron, moorhen, many ducks, etc.). We saw but one species of gull, and one (!) shorebird. Missed easy woodpeckers, three flycatchers, even several swallows, and at least five possible sparrow species. We were a little worried on our way back, straining to see waterfowl on borrow pits near the freeway; actually we picked up a pair of buffleheads and a common loon this way. Dan found four ticks on his person, and told me he’d dropped them inside the collar of my shirt just to get rid of them; I was sure he was kidding only after I’d taken a shower upon returning home.
But it was still a rare good time to be outdoors with friends, seeing old acquaintances returning from a winter vacation. The woods and wetlands were gorgeous, and we won’t hesitate a moment to do the whole thing again next year. We ended up with 83 species, nearly all seen well, many of them in full song. The list follows.
Canada goose
Mute swan
Wood duck
Mallard
Blue-winged teal
Northern shoveler
Bufflehead
Common loon
Pied-billed grebe
Double-crested cormorant
Great blue heron
Turkey vulture
Osprey
Cooper’s hawk
Red-shouldered hawk
Broad-winged hawk
Red-tailed hawk
American kestrel
Wild turkey
Virginia rail
Sora
American coot
Sandhill crane
Killdeer
Ring-billed gull
Rock pigeon
Mourning dove
Chimney swift
Belted kingfisher
Red-headed woodpecker
Red-bellied woodpecker
Downy woodpecker
Northern flicker
Eastern kingbird
White-eyed vireo
Yellow-throated vireo
Blue-headed vireo
Warbling vireo
Red-eyed vireo
Blue jay
American crow
Tree swallow
N. rough-winged swallow
Carolina chickadee
Tufted titmouse
White-breasted nuthatch
Carolina wren
House wren
Marsh wren
Blue-gray gnatcatcher
Eastern bluebird
Wood thrush
American robin
Gray catbird
Northern mockingbird
European starling
Northern parula
Yellow warbler
Yellow-rumped warbler
Black-throated green warbler
Yellow-throated warbler
Palm warbler
Prothonotary warbler
Ovenbird
Kentucky warbler
Common yellowthroat
Scarlet tanager
Eastern towhee
Chipping sparrow
Field sparrow
Song sparrow
Swamp sparrow
White-throated sparrow
Northern cardinal
Red-winged blackbird
Eastern meadowlark
Common grackle
Brown-headed cowbird
Orchard oriole
Baltimore oriole
House finch
American goldfinch
House sparrow