Learn about the hairy-tailed mole hiding in Ohio woods

 

The bizarre hairy-tailed mole, digger extraordinaire/Jim McCormac

Learn about the hairy-tailed mole hiding in Ohio woods

Columbus Dispatch

June 7, 2026

NATURE

Jim McCormac

Insofar as I am aware, this is the first time that the hairy-tailed mole has gotten ink in the Columbus Dispatch. Not surprising, given the strange mammal’s predilection for subterranean haunts.

Indeed, I would be surprised if many readers are aware that this odd beast even exists. There are three species of moles in Ohio, and only the common and widespread eastern mole is known to most. This is the little mammal that tunnels in your yard, leaving telltale ridges of dirt in its wake.

Eastern moles prefer open country, while the protagonist of this column, the hairy-tailed mole, favors wooded habitats. While inspecting mole tails is not perhaps the easiest task, these two species are easily separated by this feature. One has a furred tail; the other does not.

The holy grail for mole-seekers is the utterly bizarre star-nosed mole. This alien-looking creature looks like a sea anemone was welded to the tip of its snout. It occurs primarily in the northeast corner of Ohio and favors wet sites.

When I finally clap eyes on one, it’ll make the news, at least in this publication. Hairy-tailed moles are common in appropriate habitats, and that means they are most frequent in eastern Ohio where forests are still commonplace. It probably is in larger forested tracts in central Ohio, such as Blendon Woods and Highbanks metro parks.

Prior to European settlement, the hairy-tailed mole was certainly the most common mole in the state, as Ohio was about 95% woodland in those days. While I would like to think I am a seasoned outdoorsman, natural philosopher and wildlife photographer with many decades of experience, I can report that finding and photographing a mole is not a simple task. And regarding the image that accompanies this column, I cheated a bit.

Moles have extremely high metabolisms and occasionally seem to just detonate. Three times now, I have come across dead hairy-tailed moles that were fresh as could be, laying on the ground. Without benefit of an autopsy, I suspect they just imploded, perhaps victims of a heart attack. Not one to let an opportunity go to waste, I dug a small tunnel in the leafy humus and positioned the mole in the tunnel, as if it was just emerging from the ground. That produced the image that you see here.

But my staged photo op is accurate. Hairy-tailed moles spend much time in the soil’s upper strata and frequently forage in the leaf litter. Two years ago, while leading a field trip in the vast Shawnee State Forest in Scioto County, I caught a glimpse of one scuffling through leafy litter and managed to pounce and grab it so my group could ooh and aah over the weird mammal.

After a brief learning experience, we released it unharmed. It takes a close inspection to truly appreciate a mole’s incredible adaptations for a fossorial (burrowing) lifestyle. An elongated tubular body helps with efficiently slipping through narrow tunnels and fissures.

There are no external ears to impede progress. Their forelimbs are rotated to facilitate digging, and my oh my, those “hands”!

Imagine if you had feet larger than your head with toenails as long as your legs. An incredibly silky pelage sheds dirt like water hitting wax. When most of your time is spent in subterranean gloom, there’s little need for eyes, and those have devolved to tiny pinpricks.

Moles essentially see only light and dark – they are nearly blind. They compensate for sightlessness with incredibly acute tactile sensors known as Elmer’s organs. The elongate snout is beset with these, which allow the mole to feel its food.

To wax anthropomorphic, a hunting mole is a raging beast, a mammalian psychopath storming through the soil’s upper strata overpowering, killing and eating virtually anything that it can capture. It’s probably a good thing for us that they are only 6 inches long and weigh only 2 ounces. Were moles the size of badgers, we’d possibly be in a heap of trouble.

Most of their food is worms, beetle grubs, fly larvae, slugs and other such invertebrate fare. Moles are voracious eaters, and captives have been documented consuming three times their bodyweight in earthworms daily.

In prime habitats loaded with prey, they likely eat even more than that. As a point of comparison, a 180-pound man would have to eat 720 McDonald’s quarter pounders daily to keep up. Dr. Ornish would disapprove.

Even though hardly anyone knows anything about moles, or that they even exist, these mammals are incredibly important ecosystem engineers. In addition to being major mitigators preventing overpopulation of various invertebrate populations, their labyrinths of tunnels are used by many other organisms. These include mice, shrews, voles, snakes and salamanders.

Just because something is mostly out of sight and out of mind doesn’t mean it isn’t important.

Further ahead

I am giving a pictorial talk based on my book, "Wild Ohio: The Best of Our Natural Heritage," for the Worthington Public Library on June 17 at 7 p.m. at the Griswold Center, 777 North High St. in Worthington.

To register, visit worthingtonlibraries.org

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

Ohio park officers rescue and release a bald eagle

 

Sergeant Logan Curfman with Preservation Parks of Delaware County kneels by the cage holding a soon to be free bald eagle. From L to R: Senator Beth Liston, Mary Van Haaften (Preservation Parks director), and Heather Tuttle (Ohio Wildlife Center director).

Ohio park officers rescue and release a bald eagle

Columbus Dispatch

May 31, 2026

NATURE

Jim McCormac

On March 24, Sgt. Logan Curfman, an officer with Preservation Parks of Delaware County, was on patrol when a citizen flagged him down. A sickly bald eagle was nearby, and in obvious need of help. Curfman and his partner, Officer Eric Tanner, managed to wrestle the big bird into a container. Their bulletproof vests served an unintended purpose.

Eagles have large, powerful talons, and this bird wasn’t so ill that it couldn’t put them to use. In addition to stopping bullets, the vests proved effective at preventing mauling by talon.

The Ohio Wildlife Center (OWC) was contacted, and the officers soon had the bird, our national symbol, in the hands of the rehab professionals at the center.

An examination revealed that the eagle was suffering from an acute case of lead poisoning. Amazing, lead is still used in some ammunitions and is common in fishing tackle. It is likely that the eagle ingested lead from bullet fragments in a white-tailed deer, or from fish that had swallowed tackle.

Bald eagles scavenge heavily on carrion such as dead deer, and fish are dietary staples. The American Eagle Foundation reports that up to 47% of bald eagles have some level of lead poisoning.

After nearly two months of chelation therapy, a process in which medications leach lead from the blood stream, the eagle was much improved. Tests in a flight cage showed the raptor could fly well, and that it could catch food. The bird also was blind in its left eye, but whatever caused that injury had occurred long prior to its rescue, and the eagle seemed to function perfectly, despite that handicap.

May 24 was a big day for the rehabilitated eagle. The OWC’s communications manager, David Donahue, had arranged for its release to take place at Deer Haven Park. He also invited interested parties, including this writer.

Once everyone had assembled, the star of the show was brought out in its cage, the door opened and, after a bit of hesitation, the big bird launched itself and winged eastward toward the Olentangy River. The accompanying photo shows the eagle taking its first post-treatment flight, and I can report that it showed no signs of weakness.

This eagle surely would have perished were it not for the hard work of Preservation Parks’ employees and the OWC. The latter is one of Ohio’s premier wildlife rehabilitation facilities and does tremendous public education and outreach work. I highly recommend a visit to its facilities at 6245 Clark Road near Powell.

While bald eagles are now flourishing, such was not always the case. By 1963, there were only 417 pairs known from the lower 48 states. Liberal use of the pesticide DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) was largely to blame. This toxin entered eagles via contaminated fish, and triggered a collapse of their reproductive systems, particular eggshell thinning.

This resulted in plummeting reproductive rates and an enormous decline in eagle numbers. In Ohio, breeding bald eagles had dropped to only four pairs in 1979, and again in 1983. On Nov. 5, 1968, Richard Milhous Nixon was elected president. Responding to overwhelming concern from the citizens of worsening environmental conditions, Nixon proposed the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on July 9, 1970.

After congressional review and approval, the EPA launched on Dec. 2, 1970. One of the first issues the fledging EPA set its sights on was the elimination of DDT. On Dec. 31, 1972, following some time to transition to less toxic pesticides, DDT was officially banned. DDT slowly disappeared from the environment, and adversely affected animals such as eagles began to rebound. Today, there are over 71,000 nesting pairs of bald eagles in the lower 48 states, and Alaska boasts over 100,000 eagles – by far the most of any state.

According to the Ohio Division of Wildlife, there are now over 1,000 eagle nests known in 87 of the 88 counties. Only Meigs County lacks a nest report. But even there, a nest occurs a stone’s throw from the county line, on a West Virginia island in the Ohio River.

Delaware County, where officers Curfman and Tanner rescued the protagonist of this column, hosts 16 nests. Franklin County supports six nests. The motherlode is the western Lake Erie marsh region, where one is seemingly never out of sight of an eagle nest.

The return of the bald eagle is a modern-day environmental success story, and kudos to Preservation Parks, the Ohio Wildlife Center and officers Curfman and Tanner for ensuring that one more bald eagle graces our skies.

I should note that this eagle was found near the aptly named Eagle Ridge Park, a new Preservation Parks site that will officially open this fall.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

A bald eagle is released by the Ohio Wildlife Center in Deer Haven Park. L to R: Kristen McFarland, reporter with WBNS 10TV, Melissa Muth, chair of the OWC board, Senator Beth Liston, Heather Tuttle and (barely visible) Logan Curfman/Jim McCormac

Acadian Flycatcher

 

We had a wonderful morning photographing birds at the Denison Bioreserve in Licking County (Ohio) this morning. Lots of cool photo subjects: nesting pair of Orchard Orioles that included a first-year "helper" male, an Eastern Bluebird with large prominent caterpillar for its nestlings, Indigo Bunting, Common Yellowthroat and some other stuff.

But it was this inconspicuous flycatcher that pleased me the most. In all my years of bird photography, I had never gotten presentable imagery of an Acadian Flycatcher, despite having seen and heard hundreds (thousands?) of them. They live in the subcanopy gloom of older forests and are most easily detected by their calls and songs. I include a photo of the very spot where this bird - and its mate - are nesting. Both birds were hunting at close range and presented themselves rather nicely on occasion. Nonetheless, despite using the slowest shutter speed I thought I could get away with, and the lens aperture wide open, the ISO was still 12,800. The Canon R5 deals with high ISO's better than any camera I have ever had, though.

Acadian Flycatcher breeding habitat. This is the very spot where I photographed the male in my photos. His mate was hunting nearby, and we saw her well but could not manage images. I know the bird that I photographed was a male because he was singing. Separating the sexes visually is impossible, insofar as I know.

The breeding range of the Acadian Flycatcher mirrors that of the original eastern deciduous forest, and it is a common breeder wherever suitable woods occur in Ohio. This species winters from southern Central America south into South America, as far south as Ecuador. While songs/calls are the best way to identify this species - and the other four Empidonax flycatchers that occur in Ohio - the Acadian has some distinctive characters. It is quite green on the back and has the longest primary feathers of this group, as well as the widest bill. The very long wings and broad-based bill can be seen in my photos, especially the image above.

May 25, 2026.

New 'Birds of the Toledo Area' guide is a great book for birders

 

Cover photo by Rick Nirschl

Nature

Columbus Dispatch

Jim McCormac

May 17, 2026

One of the legendary regions for birding in North America is right here in the Buckeye State. As I write this, tens of thousands of birders are in the Toledo region, savoring the bounty of spring migrants along Lake Erie.

Thousands of others – this writer included − will soon make an appearance. And now we have a comprehensive, newly released guide to the region, "Birds of the Toledo Area."

Up to100,000 birders visit this region annually, but spring sees the biggest human migration. An estimated 80,000 people travel here from all over Ohio, scores of other states and even from overseas. All these birdwatchers dump about $40 million annually into the local economy during spring alone.

Why is this region so attractive to birds, and birders? Three primary reasons:

- The western basin of Lake Erie (the most biologically rich of the five Great Lakes) is fringed with large marshes that are great bird attractants. Fortunately, many of these wetlands have been conserved by various state and federal agencies. The most famous of these coastal marshes among the birding crowd is Magee Marsh Wildlife Area, which is owned by the Ohio Division of Wildlife.

- Lake Erie itself serves as a major speed bump to migrant birds. Some species have traveled from as far south as Argentina, on their way to boreal or even Arctic nesting locales. Even though it’s a paltry 25 miles or so across the water to Canada from Magee (many migrants have already flown 500-plus miles across the Gulf of America, formerly known as Gulf of Mexico), the birds don’t know that and see a wall of water. They stop along shoreline habitats to rest and refuel before venturing across the lake. On prime days, spectacular numbers congregate in lakeside haunts such as Magee, Maumee Bay State Park, Metzger Marsh Wildlife Area, and Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge.

- A third major factor in the region’s rich avifauna is the Oak Openings. Located primarily in western Lucas County, the Oak Openings covers about 1,300 square miles and is characterized by sand: the old dunes and beach ridges left from a time when Lake Erie was larger. Several regional specialties such as lark sparrow breed here. Irwin Prairie State Nature Preserve is this author’s favorite Oak Openings site, and it, along with all the other must-see Oak Openings sites, is detailed in the book.

About 454 bird species have been recorded in Ohio, and 381 (84%) of them have been recorded in the western Lake Erie region, including numerous rarities. Perhaps the oddest among them is Ohio’s only record of Atlantic puffin. One never knows what might turn up, but rarities aside, the sheer numbers of warblers, waterfowl, shorebirds, and others can be mind-blowing.

In 1968, legendary naturalist and Toledo Blade writer Louis W. Campbell’s book, "Birds of the Toledo Area," appeared. It served as the birder’s first guide to this amazing region. In 2002, Toledoan and expert birder Matt Anderson spearheaded an update of Campbell’s informative publication, which was packed with much new information.

Twenty-four years later, a new edition of "Birds of the Toledo Area" is hot off the press and it is a publication that all birders visiting this area should have. For that matter, anyone interested in Ohio’s bird life should have a copy.

Anderson is editor, and he had help from a fine cast of northwest Ohio birding luminaries. Co-editors are Tom Kemp, Greg Links, Elliot Tramer, and Steve Lauer. Matt Kemp and Robert Harlan provided editorial oversight. Layout and design were handled by Abby Anderson.

This 326-page book is a gem and includes nestfuls of new information. The overall look and layout are superb and especially striking are the hundreds of color photographs. The team enlisted some of the state’s best bird photographers, including such well-known shooters as Jamie Cunningham, Paul Jacyk, Rick Nirschl, and the legendary Brian Zwiebel. The photos alone are worth the price of admission.

The introductory material offers a good overview of the region that it covers, which is Lucas County (Toledo is the county seat) and parts of five other adjacent and nearby counties. A small portion of southeastern Michigan is also included. There are interesting sections on the region’s history, recent changes in bird abundance, habitat alterations wrought by man, and much more. In the back of the book is a comprehensive checklist of birds of the region.

Also quite useful is a map depicting the locations of 42 of the best birding locations in the Toledo area. This precedes accounts of each hotspot, and many include a photo of the site. The sites are split into five regions, and introductory text for each offers a good general description of the region. Each site account offers a comprehensive overview of the location, along with notable bird species that might be found, including rarities.

Other natural history information is often included, such as the teeming amphibian life at Irwin Prairie.

Making up the meat of "Birds of the Toledo Area" is the species accounts. Each includes a summation of the species’ status and habitat, and many include an excellent photo of the account’s protagonist. The authors even managed to drum up an image of the Atlantic puffin from 1980. That account’s text imparts a bizarre story, which I will not spoil for book-buyers, but imagine walking out the front door and finding a live puffin in your driveway!

"Birds of the Toledo Area" is a must-have for those interested in the feathered crowd, especially those who routinely visit northwest Ohio. I highly recommend it.

Get a copy at Amazon, RIGHT HERE.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

A pair of nightjars: Common Nighthawk and Eastern Whip-poor-will

 

As always, click the image to enlarge

A Common Nighthawk roosts about 20 feet off the ground, on a horizontal tree branch. This is a typical roosting spot for these nightjars.

Almost immediately after arriving at the Magee Marsh parking lot last Wednesday, some friends informed me of not one, but two roosting nightjars along the nearby Estuary Trail. Never one to miss out on good looks at nightjars, I soon arrived at the scene. The above is a classic nighthawk roosting spot, off the ground on a horizontal limb. Because of the situation, this bird stuck out pretty well, sometimes they are far harder to see.

At one point, the nighthawk had to relieve itself. It stood on its impossibly tiny feet and legs, waddled 90 degrees so that it was perpendicular to the limb, and blasted its effluvia to the ground. It did not want to foul its roosting spot.

This posture better showcased its barred underparts, and we can see the white patch on its primary flight feathers that is so conspicuous in flight. This bird likely wintered somewhere in South America, although the wintering range of Common Nighthawk is imperfectly understood. Suffice to say, this nighthawk has already come a LONG way and may still have some distance to go (this species breeds well into Canada and even gets into Alaska).

A hundred yards or less away was this Eastern Whip-poor-will. As is typical, it was roosting on a log on the ground, in a tangled area, and was much harder to see.

For photography purposes, it was fortuitous that these animals were not along the famed "bird trail" boardwalk. Because of all the birder traffic, taking a tripod onto the boardwalk is taboo, as it should be. There simply isn't room, and all shooting should be handheld. But I was using my 800mm, and it is a tank of a lens and not something most people would want to handhold for extended periods, me included. But there's no such problem on the wide-open estuary trail, thus I could use my 800mm f/5.6 lens and the extra reach of the big lens was hugely helpful, especially for the nighthawk which was further away. For some reason, I did not have my 1.4x teleconverter in my backpack, or I would have used that too. The 800/1.4x combo makes for an 1120 mm f/8 lens, and for subjects such as these roosting nightjars, it works perfectly. Nonetheless, even the bare 800mm was okay, even with a fair bit of cropping.

Baltimore Oriole

 

As always, click the photo to enlarge

A male Baltimore Oriole pauses in a copse of smooth sumac (Rhus glabra). This vibrant blackbird is one of the most colorful species in North America and looks quite tropical. And it is. Baltimore Orioles primarily winter in Central America and northern South America and spend more time down there than up here. I saw and heard many yesterday. One should never tire of the male's glorious flute-like whistling. Magee Marsh, Lucas County, Ohio, May 13, 2026.

I made an epic trip to Lake Erie yesterday, primarily visiting Sheldon Marsh State Nature Preserve and Magee Marsh Wildlife Area. At Sheldon along, I saw 21 warbler species and added several more at Magee. Tons of other stuff as well, and I returned from 14-hour door-to-door excursion with nearly 4,000 images. That's in large part because I was shooting my Canon R5 in electronic mode at the maximum frame rate, which yields 20 frames per second. Birds are fast, and fast burst rates are best to capture interesting postures.

I've got some really cool stuff from this trip and will share some more imagery later.

Swainson's Warbler in Ohio: Breeding?

 

A Swainson's Warbler (Limnothlypis swainsonii) belts out its loud, whistled song, which is somewhat reminiscent of a Louisiana Waterthrush. The latter sometimes occurs within earshot of the former on breeding grounds. I made this image in West Virginia, where this species nests within dense stands of great rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum).

While I find this species to be a handsome animal, it probably would rank low among eastern North America's 38 breeding warbler species in the looks department, to most people. There's a lot of competition, including gorgeous lookers such as Common Yellowthroat, Magnolia Warbler, Prairie Warbler and many others. But who cares? All of that is superficial. To me, the Swainson's Warbler - a species I have come to know well over the past few decades - is fascinating on several fronts.

One is its rarity. Swainson's Warbler is the third rarest breeding warbler in eastern North America, with a total population estimate of about 140,000 birds. The Kirtland's Warbler eclipses it in rarity, by a longshot. A census conducted in 2025 produced only 1,489 pairs, or 2,978 individuals. Rarer yet - WAY rarer - is the Bachman's Warbler. Most people consider it extinct, including me, and the last documented, acceptable sighting was in 1961 in South Carolina.

Undated photo, photographer unknown (at least to me)

The above photo shows a man on horseback in front of a stand of giant cane (Arundinaria gigantea). It was obviously taken long ago. This enormous grass, the bamboo of eastern North America, forms extensive stands known as canebrakes. This was the primary habitat of Swainson's Warbler. I say "was" because humans have destroyed nearly all of the canebrakes, which used to occur commonly along streams and river across much of the eastern U.S. That undoubtedly included the north side of the Ohio River and its immediate tributaries.

Map courtesy BONAP (Biota of North America Program)

The light green counties on the above map show where giant cane occurs, or mostly, USED to occur. As noted, most of the large canebrakes no longer exist. These records are based on plant specimens, most of them probably very old.

Map courtesy of Birds of the World (Cornell Lab of Ornithology)

This is the range map of the protagonist of this post, the Swainson's Warbler. The pinkish areas represent the breeding range. You'll notice a lot of overlap with the giant cane map.

Although there's no way to prove it, I would bet that the north side of the Ohio River, in Ohio, hosted breeding Swainson's Warblers. There certainly must have been large canebrakes. There are numerous other plant species that also reach their northern terminuses on the Ohio side of the Ohio River.

One of the great tragedies was the shockingly fast and sweeping destruction of canebrakes. Rivers were the highways for settlers invading the Ohio Country and elsewhere in the interior, and the cane would have been quite easy to destroy with fire or simple tools. Canebrake land would have made for very fertile croplands and potential town sites. Anyway, it was pretty much gone before anyone had a chance to document the extent of the canebrakes.

As always, click the photo to enlarge

Nonetheless, scraps and fragments of canebrakes persist. Including the one above. Most of the understory in this shot is cane, growing along a small stream in Shawnee State Forest in Scioto County, Ohio. I was standing approximately in the middle of the stand when I made this image on May 7, 2025.

In 2024, a singing Swainson's Warbler was found here, and it stayed for quite a while. The following year, 2025, it or another returned and summered, but apparently was without a mate.

While I had heard the 2025 bird, I saw no evidence of a mate or breeding. But I did discover something very interesting, that might account for the birds' interest in this site. On May 7, I visited this location, but came in the long way, from the heart of the forest to the north. As I neared the location, windows rolled down and listening intently, I noticed cane thickets through the woods, along the stream. Come leafout of trees and shrubs, the cane is completely concealed but leaves were still undeveloped by the time of my visit.

I bushwhacked back to the cane and saw that the stand was fairly extensive, although I still need to go back in there and get accurate measurements of its extent. It is by far the largest canebrake I have seen, and indeed, the only one I have seen in Ohio.

So, I don't think it is a coincidence that Swainson's Warblers are smitten with this site. And I wonder if and how long they may have been summering here before some sharp birders discovered them in 2024. Also, on my visit this spring, I found four Swainson's Warblers! I watched what was undoubtedly a pair: a singing male closely hanging with another, even together on the same branch. This species is monomorphic and as far as I know, cannot be sexed visually. Walking down the road produced two other singing males. I have no idea whether they also had mates.

I imagine finding a Swainson's Warbler nest is not easy, even though they are often within 4-5 feet of the ground, although they've been found as high as 12 feet. Their nest is the largest of any wood warbler, but its exterior is covered with dead leaves, so the nest can look much like an old clump of leaves or flood debris. The female does all the construction, but the male is often close at hand. Sometimes the nest is woven into the cane, or it might be placed in dense shrubby growth nearby.

While the first Swainson's Warbler in Ohio was discovered in 1947 in Lawrence County, and there have been at least eight territorial singing males in or near Ohio River counties since (not counting the birds described in this post), and at least two of those older reports mention two birds were present, breeding has never been documented in the state.

As there are most definitely at least one pair at the Shawnee site, I would think they would attempt nesting. But given their rarity, it probably wouldn't be a good idea for lots of people to traipse about the site seeking a nest. Hopefully a careful, targeted search can be undertaken by one or two stealthy, knowledgeable people. It would be most useful to know for sure if they are breeding, not only for potential management considerations, but to document the first nesting of this species on the north side of the Ohio River.