Columbus Birding

Where do the migrants hide during the day? And why don’t pewees go there? We’ve all had that experience: a great morning chock full of migrant birds, but come 10:00 or 11:00 AM and it’s like somebody flipped the ‘Off’ switch. Where did all those migrants go? Landbird migrants tend to disappear in the late…

It was an amazingly predictable occurrence this Summer. I would be visiting some dense forest patch along one of our creeks and hear or see a Black & White Warbler. Sure, I’ve seen them in summer around Columbus before, but never in the numbers of this year. In June alone I had 10 different sightings….

I was birding around north Hoover back in late June, and I had to stop and confront myself. I had thought to go out to the Hoover Boardwalk, but some part of me said, ”Don’t Bother. The water will be deep and the birds will be few.” I overruled the thought and went anyway, and…

Mention “Blacklick Woods” to most central Ohio birders, or even non-birders, and they’ll immediately think of the swamp forest and associated Nature Center. It’s a natural response, since that’s where most of the trails and picnic areas are located, and where most of the Metropark programs occur here. There is however, more to the park…

I heard the thin ascending call long before I could find the bird. I was walking around Bareis Preserve, an overgrown meadow along Walnut Creek in Canal Winchester, and heard the rising ‘ zee zee zee zee zee zee zee zee zee’.  Tthe distinctive call hit me like a slap: Prairie Warbler, and it wasn’t…

Every Spring, those of us birders in central Ohio enjoy the waves of migrants in an unusual fashion, telling each other how nice a morning was, then adding “but its not like up at the Lake” or “we’re going to Magee next weekend”.  It’s the same sort of civic insecurity and self-depreciation that manifests itself…