Observers: Jack & Jay Stenger, Paul Wharton, and Joe Bens.
Well aware of the tremendous raptor
reports from this region this winter, our party could hardly wait to visit.
We
got our chance Wednesday and were not
disapointed. In an attempt to get an accurate number of raptors, we only
counted the hawks we saw on our first pass through the area. When we
revisited
a spot, we did not include any subsequent raptor sightings to our origional
totals. We repeated this process for Short-eared Owls, which was simple enough
as we did not see any
prior to 4:45 pm, when we started a new
pass through the area. We birded all of the roads around The Wilds and also
included CR 20, which runs east of US 83 in Noble Co, about 2 miles south of
Cumberland. Our raptor totals were :
No.
Harrier 36, Red-tailed Hawk 20, Rough-legged Hawk 51 (13 dark-morph),
Am. Kestrel 13, Short-eared Owl 83,
Great Horned Owl 2 (one on the nest),
Turkey Vulture 1.
Other birds of interest included;
Great Blue Heron 2, Canada Geese 300+,
Am. Black Duck 40, Mallard 60, Redhead
7, Ring-necked Duck 77, Bufflehead 3,
Hooded Merganser 2, Wild Turkey 13,
Killdeer 2, Am. Woodcock 3, Belted
Kingfisher, Horned Lark 100+, E. Bluebird 8,
Am. Robin 40, 2 Yellow-
rumped Warblers, Am. Tree sparrow 40,
Dark-eyed Junco 50, Red-winged Blackbird
80, Co. Grackle 1.
This area can be located in Delorme's
Ohio Atlas on page 71, B-5.
prepared by Vic Fazio III