You also can have a color, hard-copy booklet snail-mailed at no cost from ODNR by calling 1-800-WILDLIFE. Ask for the Common Birds of Ohio publication, and the accompanying CD if you’d like to learn to identify birds by their calls and songs. ODNR also gives away Warblers of Ohio and Waterbirds of Ohio and you can request their respective CDs as well. (Columbus Audubon has copies of these booklets and CDs; you can pick them up at CA public programs at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center on the fourth Tuesday of each month.)
Field guides can be helpful for less common birds. Try your library or book stores for books for your area, such as Birds of Ohioby McCormac and Kennedy, published by Lone Pine.
Your help is needed! Mark your calendar for Friday, February 18 through Monday, February 21 and use your bird-watching skills to help birds in as little as 15 minutes as part of the Great Backyard Bird Count! No scientists could ever cover such a wide area in as short of a time-span as we can by working together. Scientists will compile all our data and get a lot of helpful ideas to protect birds and habitats. This information will help answer many of their questions. Represent your yard and post your sightings during the Great Backyard Bird Count.
Email me to receive the monthly Nature Scoop email and go to the National Wildlife Federation’s Backyard Habitat Web site to learn more. Let’s work together to help birds, one yard at a time. Winterize Your Yard for Wildlife with tips from the Columbus Audubon Web site. There has been some concern about birds’ health after bathing in heated birdbaths during frigid weather. Recent studies by Audubon and others have found no problems, but if you still have concerns, you can cross sticks or limbs over the water so that the birds can only drink, not bathe.
