Ohio Ornithological Society annual conference!

 Many visitors to the fabled Shawnee State Park in southern Ohio's rugged hills will soon see this banner - or something like it - welcoming birders to the (song) birdiest region of Ohio. The weekend of April 24th thru 26th marks the 11th annual conference of the Ohio Ornithological Society. As it did the first two years of its existence, the Society is holding the event at Shawnee. If you haven't yet signed on, I'd encourage you to do so. There, in my opinion, is absolutely no better place to be in late April. See all the details, and GET YER TICKETS HERE!

In addition to a fine cast of speakers, there are field trips galore. In fact, the emphasis is very much on getting afield. At least 100 species of birds breed in 65,000 acre Shawnee State Forest and the nearly adjacent 17,000 acre Edge of Appalachia Preserve. Expert guides who know the intimate nuances of this vast landscape will guide trips to the most productive nooks and crannies.

Want to see Cerulean Warbler? Piece of cake. Some of the best populations remaining are found here. It's only one of nearly 20 breeding warbler species, and of course at this date the resident birds will be augmented by numerous migrants. That's one of the great things about late April in Shawnee and vicinity. Nearly all of the locally breeding birds are back and especially easy to see as leafout is usually not yet very advanced.  The following two weekends one can to head points north, such as Lake Erie and Magee Marsh, and catch later waves of migrants.

Prairie Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler, Blue Grosbeak, Eastern Whip-poor-will and Chuck-will's-widow - all of these and scores more are there for the viewing. As an added bonus, an incredibly rich wildflower flora, including a number of rare species, will be putting on a show. Shawnee and the Edge is a truly magical region, especially in early spring.

Here's one of the field trip groups from the inaugural OOS conference at Shawnee in 2005. It features many well known birders, not the least of whom is a very young Ethan Kistler, standing just left of the tree. Ethan now guides birding trips in South Africa.

If you can get away, I'd highly recommend attending. These conferences are always a blast, and generate lots of exceptional birding. We welcome all levels of skill, ESPECIALLY newer birders! Again, CLICK HERE for complete details and registration.

OOS Annual Conference - Shawnee!

The stunning Northern Parula is one of at least 20 species of warblers attendees can expect to see.

Mark your calendars for the weekend of April 25-27, if you haven't already done so. That's the weekend of the Ohio Ornithological Society's 10th annual conference, to be held at the state park lodge imbedded deep within Shawnee State Forest in the rugged hills of southernmost Ohio. If you've never been to Shawnee, you're in for a treat. This is the largest contiguous forest in Ohio at 65,000 acres, and it nearly connects with the sprawling 16,000 acre Edge of Appalachia Preserve just to the west. The biodiversity of this region is beyond incredible. Over 100 species of birds nest in the area, including specialties galore such as Chuck-will's-widow, Summer Tanager, and Cerulean Warbler. Want to see (or at least hear) Ruffed Grouse? This is the place. The sheer numbers of breeding warblers is staggering. A good late April morning might produce dozens each of Worm-eating Warbler, Louisiana Waterthrush, Blue-winged Warbler, Hooded Warbler and many more. Shawnee is THE hotspot for Cerulean Warbler, too.

The OOS launched itself with our first conference in 2005, at Shawnee. It was a hit, with some 200 attendees. Exposure to this magnificent forest and its never-ending biodiversity set many tongues to wagging, word traveled, and our encore there in 2006 attracted a whopping 250 people. Sign on RIGHT HERE, you won't regret it.

The conference is nice blend of programs and field trips. The agenda is RIGHT HERE.

I have spent countless hundreds of hours in Shawnee and the Edge of Appalachia; the area ranks very high on my list of all-time favorite places. Not only because the birds are so lush, but also because of the treasure trove of other flora and fauna. The gorgeous little Red-banded Hairstreak above is but one of a few dozen butterfly species that can be seen on a warm sunny spring day. There are around 1,000 species of native plants, which fuel plenty of animal life of all kinds. The flora is punctuated, rather liberally, by rare plants that are in some cases found nowhere else north of the Ohio River.

Shawnee field trips are an absolute blast, and never boring. I believe I am going to take a group of adventurers out Saturday night into the depths of the wilderness. We will especially be after Eastern Whip-poor-wills and Chuck-will's-widows, but there's no telling what one might find in the nighttime forest.

The OOS conference is a great way to get a jumpstart on spring. Down there, by late April, nearly all the breeding birds will be back in force - people in northern and even central Ohio will have to wait a few weeks to see most of these species, at least in any numbers.

To register and for the complete lowdown, CLICK HERE.

Owl Symposium! February 15-17, 2013

Mark your calendars in ink for the weekend of February 15th thru the 17th. The Ohio Ornithological Society is putting on a conference that's all about those wisest of birds, the owls. The venue? The fabulous Mohican State Park lodge, nestled in the thick of a 5,000-acre forest full of wonderful birds. GO HERE for details about the Owls of North America Symposium.

 

A sleepy Barred Owl, Strix varia, fails to acknowledge your narrator. I photographed the animal as it slumbered in a gnarly Swamp White Oak along a back road in the Killbuck Marsh Wildlife Area. Barred Owls are one of only two owls that occur in Ohio that have dark eyes. I'm sure you can guess the other. We'll be out looking for owls in their natural haunts at the symposium, and there's usually an obliging pair of Barred Owls a mere stone's throw from the lodge.

This Burrowing Owl, Athene cunicularia, did acknowledge your blogger, although I wasn't nearly as close to the animal as the photo suggests. The bird pierced me with its fierce yellow eyes as it perched at the entrance to its burrow in Cape Coral, Florida. Believe it or not, there are four Ohio records of these lanky-legged ground dwellers, and we'll probably have others. Burrowing Owls have a broad but patchy distribution throughout the Americas, and western U.S. and Canadian populations are highly migratory.

Our keynote speaker hails from the west, just like this owl. Denver Holt is director and founder of the Owl Research Institute and one of the world's foremost experts on owls. He is a dynamic speaker, and a hoot to listen to. The chance to hear Denver is worth the price of admission alone. His subject is awesome - Snowy Owls, Bubo scandiacus, and his work with them on their home turf, the high Arctic of Alaska.

Its "ears" flopped down like a hound dog, a plump-looking Long-eared Owl, Asio otus, looks down in wonderment. I luckily espied the bird from afar, long before it saw me, and managed to furtively sneak near enough for some photos before it detected my presence. This, apparently, is what a Long-eared Owl in repose looks like - fat, fluffy, and ears adroop. Seconds later, it snapped to attention, sleeking its body to impossibly slender branchlike propertions and erecting the ear tufts to complete the illusion of a broken off snag.

Gail Laux of the Ohio Bird Sanctuary will be on hand and giving a lecture about the various Ohio owls and their amazing anatomy and habits. She'll have props, too - live owls that the Sanctuary has taken in, but which can't be released due to injuries. In addition to up close and personal owl encounters, we'll also be out-of-doors and finding wild owls, in addition to all manner of other birds, As you probably know, this has been a bonanza year for crossbills, and the hemlock-choked Mohican Gorge usually has them.

Photos of Northern Saw-whet Owls, Aegolius acadicus, often elicit involuntary "aahs" from people, and I've got to admit - they're cute. You wouldn't be oohing and aahing if you were a White-footed Mouse and saw this thing swooping in, I'll tell you that much. To the rodents, this is a feathered Freddie Krueger come to life. This one was photographed during a banding operation.

Bob Placier and Tom Bartlett, who have banded hundreds of saw-whets between them, will give a program about their fascinating work with eastern North America's smallest owl. As a major perk, they'll set up nets and try to capture saw-whets on Saturday night.

There's much more, including live music by the inestimable band of birders, the Rain Crows, on Friday night. These symposia are a lot of fun, and a great chance to learn, see lots of birds, and meet lots of like-minded people. Even if you live in far-flung places such as Uzbekistan or West Virginia, I'd encourage you to make this scene.

Registration and all of the other details are RIGHT HERE. Hope to see you there!

OOS Annual Meeting

Yesterday morning's sunrise, as observed from the pier at Lakeside, Ohio. Lakeside was home base for the Ohio Ornithological Society's annual meeting, and I was part of the festivities. This was the 7th annual powwow if I've got things straight, and these "meetings" are always a great time. They're meetings only because the official vote on elected officers takes place, but that's a tiny part of the get-together.

The main focus of an OOS meeting is speakers, and field trips. Being along Lake Erie, as we were, shorebirds were the primary theme, but it could just have well been warblers. The songbirding probably eclipsed the shorebirding, but both were good. Our two keynote speakers were Mr. Shorebird himself, Kevin Karlson, and Lukas Padegimas, who gave a great presentation on his work with shorebirds in Alaska last year.

About 150 people convened for this year's meeting, and all of us went out in the field. Field trips have always been a staple of OOS events since Day One, and the group does a great job of getting topnotch experts involved to lead the field excursions. That's Jen Brumfield front and center, probably receiving an update on some rarity from one of numerous agents deployed along the lakefront.

We partnered with the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, which provided access to areas of the refuge that are normally off limits. Saturday afternoon's field trip along the dikes was quite an affair, with some 40 vehicles queued up. The sheer volume of optics was staggering.

Ohioans are fortunate in that we have Ottawa NWR, which is a state and national treasure. Its location along the shores of western Lake Erie make the refuge's marshes a beacon for migrant birds. This is the mouth of Crane Creek, which is shallow and estuarinelike. It's mudflats were host to enormous numbers of Common Terns, a lesser number of Forster's Terns, a great diversity of waterfowl, and a couple of American White Pelicans. There weren't scads of shorebirds, but we saw a decent diversity: American Golden-Plover, Black-bellied Plover, Pectoral Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, and a few other species. The highlight was two cooperative Buff-breasted Sandpipers, which was a lifer for many.

I helped out at East Harbor State Park on Saturday morning, and we had scads of songbirds, including at least 17 species of warblers. Most conspicuous, by far, were the blizzards of Blackpoll Warblers. I went over to East Harbor with Kevin Karlson for a few hours on Friday afternoon, and we estimated that we saw well over 100 Blackpolls. The next morning our group had even more, and all of the field trips were reporting scads of Blackpolls. The individual in this photo - which I took with my macro lens - was gorging on the fruit of Gray Dogwood, Cornus racemosa, as were many others.

The Ohio Ornithological Society is truly a birder's organization, and does an excellent job of working with birders of all skill levels. Don't let the OR-NIH-THO-LOJ-IH-KAL word spook you! We have a blast, and the various conferences and symposia are worth their weight in gold. CLICK HERE for membership info.

Thanks to everyone who worked to make this another great event!