The Central Ohio Chapter of the Ohio Young Birders Club spent the day birding and in service at three different locations.
Green Lawn Cemetery
March 24, 2018, I and some other birders made the trip to Greenlawn Cemetery to bird for a few hours. We had with us, among others, Mr. Bryan Sharp, an expert birder and his son, Sebastian. We saw several different species there, including Pine Siskins, Canada Geese, and one Brown Creeper. My favorite part was when a Canada Goose was spotted nesting on top of a mausoleum, staring down at us from above.
We first rendezvoused at “The Pit”, a small pond with a tiny island in the cemetery. There were a few feeders that needed filling near the water. We saw several robins waiting for us to finish so that they could have something to eat. There were also three Canada Geese in the pond, a pair and one other, who was constantly trying to get into the pair’s territory in the middle of the pond, much to their chagrin.
We then moved on across the trail a little ways to the bridge. There I got to see a robin really up close. While we were walking through the graveyard, we came across Eddie Rickenbacker’s grave. When we got to some of the mausoleums, Mr. Sharp pointed out some of the places inside the roofs birds would make their nests. Then we headed back. All in all, it was a very successful trip!
Charity Thomas is a member of the Central Ohio chapter of the Ohio Young Birders Club
Lunch and Purple Martin gourds at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center
We, that is my Mother, brother, and my sister, had planned along with most of our Ohio Young birders club (OYBC) group to meet at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center (GIAC) for lunch. We had just finished a birding walk at the Greenlawn Cemetery. As we entered the building I noticed Ann Petrushka our newest co-adviser for the club. I also spotted Darlene Sillick, one of our most energetic co-advisers walking toward a large room filled with a few circular tables surrounded by chairs. I remembered this room from my time spent assisting with the silent action at a recent bluebirding conference that was held at the GIAC. There was one table in the center of the room and Maura Rawn, another of our co-advisers was directing us to move two more tables and several chairs to it. Within a few minutes three tables were lined up in the middle of the room and Maura was offering us bagged popcorn and chips as well as two types of homemade cookies. I was a little nervous to break off from the family but by now most of the chairs were taken leaving only a few two chair spaces, however with some coaxing from Mom my sister and I settled into two chairs near Ann and Amy, a new member to our club. As we were all unpacking our lunches an Osprey was spotted thru the tall bird garnished windows that surrounded us in a simi-panoramic view. In a matter of minutes it had dived into a nearby pond, retrieved a bright orange object that Darlene identified as a large goldfish, and vanished from my sight. luckily one of the OYB members had her camera ready and snapped at least one excellent photo of the bird which she shared with many of the people at the three tables. Darlene kindly passed out books on astronomy and birding.
After we ate we went back to work, Darlene had assigned us to clean out several nestboxs and to fix a decoy bird that was upside down. I followed the other OYBCs out a side door and down a few steep step to a generally open area. By the time I got there they were closing the singal bluebird box and moving toward a set of Purple Martin Boxes hight up on a flagpole-like structure. Warren, who is in the process of becoming a co-adviser assisted us in removing the baffle, a metal structure on the high post. This revealed a network of boat-like roping easily untangled by our many hands. Now that the rope was untangled we could smoothly lower the 12 houses. Then the cycle began, first you should check for wasp nest, if there was one we let Warren remove it. Next we removed the old dirty nesting material it was wind that day and if you were near the box opening you would get little bits of nesting in your face, we all took turns. After that Maura or Ann would hand us a wipe to remove the dirt. Last but not least we would fill the nest with new clean dry pine needles. In one house two chick corpses fell out, which I think is very sad. As we moved nesting material out of and into the boxes we put it into and took it out of two separate trash sacks. All in all, I had a very enjoyable time cleaning out the nestboxs with our club. After we finished cleaning out the boxes someone noticed that there were covers on the nest holes on the second row. These holes were the only way a bird could enter the box. As we were unsure whether or not that we should uncover the openings one of our group ran back up to the GIAC, asked Darlene if we should take the panels off, and then came jogging back down the hill, bypassing the steps on the way down. We were told not to remove the covers. After that I headed back to the GIAC with the rest of our group to rendezvous with the parents.
Cassandra Thomas is a member of the Central Ohio chapter of the Ohio Young Birders Club
Brookside Countryside Club
On March 24th, 2018 I went to Brookside Country Club. I had just been birding at Greenlawn Cemetary and The Grange Insurance Audubon Center. I was going to put up bluebird boxes. When we got to the posts where we were supposed to put up the bluebird boxes, my sisters and I got some boxes and went over to the posts. One of my sisters mostly knew how to put them up, but we needed some help. Then Carl who worked for the country club came up and helped us put them up. He was very good at putting the boxes up so it was really nice to have some help from him. Just before we left to go to some of the other boxes, Darlene played the bluebird call for Ann Petrushka another birder. A few seconds later a bluebird called back, and that was really interesting I thought. While we were putting the boxes up Hilary Hirtle, A videographer who has taken pictures and made videos of different things in our club took pictures of us putting the boxes up. I really enjoyed putting up the boxes and had a good time. I hope that there are some Bluebirds in them right now.
Case Thomas is a member of the Central Ohio chapter of the Ohio Young Birders Club
Species list for Green Lawn Cemetery
Canada Goose
Mallard (Northern)
Great Blue Heron
Turkey Vulture
Red-tailed Hawk
Killdeer
Ring-billed Gull
Mourning Dove
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker (Eastern)
Blue Jay
American Crow
Carolina Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch (Eastern)
Brown Creeper
Carolina Wren
American Robin
European Starling
Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored)
White-throated Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Eastern Towhee
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
House Finch
Pine Siskin
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow