Doing some blockbusting this weekend

I'm going to be helping my friend Brad do some breeding bird atlas survey work down in southern Ohio this weekend. He arranged for free camping, which is a nice bonus. Hopefully, I'll get some more state year birds as well - I'm having an average year for the state list, but my best year ever for the ABA area - which is partly why my state list is suckin'!

We're going to stop in Pickaway County on the way down tomorrow to try for Black Rails that may have set up shop in a local wetland - at least two males and perhaps a female have been calling all week. Of course, with my luck, it will be gone by the time I get there...

Answer to the last blog post title: Do Both!

So, saturday morning after a very nice breakfast of pancakes with Maine blueberry syrup lovingly prepared by my wife, I headed down to Logan, Ohio, to look for the Mississippi Kite.

I arrived at the Brass Circle golf course about 10:30 am and parked at the end of the course. About 10:40 AM, I observed one kite being harassed by two smaller (unidentified) birds, before it ducked down below the tree line. I saw it (or the other one, there's two and they are almost certainly breeding) again a few minutes later. And voila, that's number 362 on my life list and number 277 on my Ohio list.

Satisfied, I headed back up to Columbus, listening to my favorite radio show "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me - The NPR News Quiz" which is one of the funniest news commentary shows in all of media.

I went up to Sharon Woods Metro Park, which is in one of my atlas blocks. Although breeding season is coming to an end, there were still a lot of birds with recently fledged young - some that were so close to adult plumage that behavior was the main indication of a juvenile instead of an adult. I added the following confirmations for block 58D2NW: Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher, Cedar Waxwing, Eastern Kingbird, Brown-headed Cowbird, Blue Jay, Tufted Titmouse, Northern Mockingbird. I also updated Common Yellowthroat to a T7 code. This will probably be my last set of OBBA observations for this season, as household duties will keep me out of the field for the next couple of weeks.

But then it's shorebird season!

Life bird or breeding bird survey? That is the question

so, Saturday I will go birding again. I have only been birding once since I got back from my honeymoon, due to household commitments. I've been reading on Ohio-birds about two species of birds currently being seen in Ohio that aren't native to the state (not yet, anyway), and I want to see at least one of these birds: Mississippi Kite in Logan, Ohio; and Eurasian Collared-dove in Celia, Ohio. Seeing either would add another life bird to my list.

However, I also should put in some time for the breeding bird atlas, as I have 3 blocks I have signed up for and it's near the end of the season. What to do?

Also on Saturday, my wife E. B. is cooking pancakes for breakfast. That sort of rules out the survey option. I think I will go for one of the potential life birds, then maybe get up early Sunday morning and do some work in my newest survey block.

The thing about my new survey block, is that I didn't realize how urban and blighted it is when I signed up for it. I asked for it because it is a "priority block" - that is, it's a block that was surveyed during the first atlas in the 1980s and they want all priority blocks surveyed to ensure comparative data. The list of birds from the 80s survey seems amazingly diverse for how the area looks now - mainly neighborhoods of closely packed houses of low-income families. One park has a decent woodlot, but I am pretty unsure of the safety of bushwacking through these woods by myself in this location. There is also a public golf course, and next season I will ask permission to survey on its property. American Kestrel and Wood duck were confirmed breeders in the 80s in this block, and if they are going to be present now, that's probably where they will be.

Blockbusting weekend in SE Ohio

I spent this last weekend camping with my bird group in Lawrence County, Ohio. We were participating in an activity called "blockbusting" - which is when a group of birders volunteer to go out and survey a large number of survey blocks for the Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas that would otherwise get little coverage. We had a great weekend. The camping was good and the birding was excellent.

I was teamed with John Habig, a birder I had not met before but recognized from his posts to the Ohio Birds email list. We surveyed six blocks in 15 hours of birding over two days. We confirmed breeding for 22 species of birds out of 76 observed, including interesting birds like Blue-winged Warbler, Ovenbird, and Orchard Oriole. Our two highlights were a territorial White-throated Sparrow and a territorial Black-and-white Warbler.

The absolute highlight for the group, however, was a find of four Yellow-crowned Night Herons at a farm pond in Gallia county. There are only two other records in the atlas of this species and only one of those is a confirmation (strangely, it seems that the breeding colony in Columbus has not yet been entered into the atlas website application, so that's a total of two confirmed breeding locations). Hopefully, someone will be able to go back a little later and see some fledged young.

I highly recommend participating in breeding bird surveys - it's as fun as birding during migration, and maybe even more of a challenge.