Creature Feature

Columbus Audubon thanks Laura Dornan and the Canton Audubon Society for their kind permission to republish this article. Some ducks that whistle rather than quack, among them male Greater and Lesser Scaup, American Wigeon and Blue-winged Teal, are in fact ducks. But whistling-ducks in the genus Dendrocygna, or “tree swan”, are more closely related to […]

“Darn”, I thought, “it looks pretty threatening. I’d better hurry through this.” I had driven out to the restored wetlands at Battelle-Darby Metro Park, hoping for some Fall shorebirds that had been reported there, as well as some of the early waterfowl that always showed up at this golden spot. However, the sky to the

It was a glorious October morning, and we hoped to rack up an impressive list of late migrants. One of those migrants, however, had other plans as we started out around the trails at Blendon Woods. “I see a few Yellow-rumps”, called one of the birders, “so we won’t get skunked on warblers today.” “Be

I got out early that morning, as late July in south Florida can be miserable, but birds were already up and moving. Many July mornings are unremarkable, but this morning I started hearing the fight calls – zrees and zips — of overhead Blue Gray Gnatcatchers and Yellow Warblers. They were already starting to migrate! As the

It was one of those miserable hot August days. The only upside, if it can be called that, was that the water levels at Hoover Reservoir had been dropping and exposing some mudflats. (Note: With Columbus’ increased growth, the Water Department doesn’t let this happen much anymore.) That’s good shorebird potential, and we slogged out to take

It was a cold April morning, long before most neotropical migrants arrive. We were looking and listening for one of the first real sounds of Spring in Ohio – a singing Yellow-throated Warbler (Setophaga dominica). These colorful little birds return much earlier than most warblers, and often start to set up territories along central Ohio