Creature Feature

We knew the birds were there, long before we could see them, mostly from the noisy begging by the juveniles. We were near several Osprey platforms with nests. Osprey calls are piercingly loud, but the adults don’t make them often. Big begging juveniles are another story; they squeal long and loud, imploring the adults to catch them […]

Imagine an Ohio awash in wetlands. Every stream with slow, willow-choked meanders, most rivers with meadows and pools, all without human intervention. This was how the state must have appeared during the early 1700s, when beavers were widespread. Most of Ohio’s watercourses would’ve looked more like those in Canada or the northern Rockies, where the terms beaver

I was gazing out at the bird-feeder when the hawk cruised in. As the birds scattered, I expected the usual Cooper’s Hawk, but was startled when a Red-shouldered Hawk did a quick turn past the feeder and chased a squirrel off into the bushes. I never did see the outcome, but made a mental note: another adaptation

We were looking at turtles basking along Darby Creek and something wasn’t clicking. The kids were asking about the turtles, and my mind was drawing a blank. I was used to Painted Turtles and Sliders (both common in ponds in the Midwest), but these flat olive turtles didn’t look right. When we tried to edge closer

I leaned over the footbridge railing and looked where she was pointing. At first all I could see was a tangle of zig-zagging sycamore branches, but then a movement caught my eye. A tiny wing flick revealed a tiny bird: a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird, squeezed atop a tiny lichen-covered knob that could only be her nest. We

“Something isn’t right here,” the woman said with a perplexed look on her face. Our group was birding Greenlawn Cemetery, and we’d just looked through an apparent group of Grackles. Most of us had already moved on, but she looked back at the Grackles, a few of which had dropped to the ground and were tussling with leaves and tree debris. “They don’t sound like Grackles,” she intoned. As it turned out, we had almost been fooled by the Midwest’s stealthiest winter resident, the Rusty Blackbird. Her initial comment was also prophetic about the species as well.