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…
Many of you have had this experience: canoeing or walking the bank of a river or creek, we see a flash of blue and white and hear the dry rattle of a kingfisher….
We’d hiked along the woodland in southern Indiana in late fall, reveling in the piles of downed tree leaves. But here were green leaves, and they weren’t on trees. They were sprouting from the ground! Not only that, but they seemed to be in 2 varieties. One had closely spaced white veins running the length of…
