Date: 3/9/25 6:01 pm From: Robert Thorn <robthorn6...> Subject: [Ohio-birds] Hocking County wetlands,3-09: waterfowl,blackbirds,phoebe
Yes, it sounds like an oxymoron, but the Hocking Hills does have wetlands. Almost all of them are man-made to some degree, but they still attract birds. I took a long morning to check on some of them, hoping for unusual waterfowl and possible early landbird migrants. First stop was Lake Logan, a large reservoir/state park south of Logan. Like a lot of reservoirs, its principal creation was for flood control, but recreation has become a big secondary reason. It was fully ice-free, but didn't have much besides some geese, scaup, and Mergansers (both Common & Hooded). Not much in the way of landbirds, but lots of redwings & grackles were around the edges of the lake.
Many of the 'wetlands' around Logan (and Lancaster) are old and new quarry lakes. This is the bottom of an arm of prehistoric Lake Tight and mining the gravel has been a going concern for many years. A large old quarry lake is along Iles Rd west of town, but it held pretty much the same stuff as nearby Lake Logan. A newer cluster were along US33 southeast of town, but they held even less, with just a few geese and Common Mergansers.
In the hills east of town are a series of 'inadvertent' wetlands caused by old railroad dikes backing up stream flows. The Wayne National Forest has made several of these - Rutherford marsh, Greendale marsh, Tansky's marsh -- into permanent wildlife magnets. Rutherford even has the Ora Anderson trail running along the old railroad grade, and it had some geese, wood ducks, and Green-winged Teal, along with a bonus of several singing bluebirds. Greendale was more isolated, and its railroad grade more overgrown, but it had a few Mallards, Gadwall, Ring-necked Ducks, and Hooded Mergansers. An E.Phoebe was flycatching off stumps out in the marsh. I didn't have time to reach Tansky's.
Another type of wetland is more personal, where a landowner dammed a creek to create a recreational or wildlife pond. One in the National Forest was Sand Creek Pond, but it hald nothing today beside a few landbirds. A small pond along the Oldtown Creek Trail at the east edge of Logan also fits this description, but it also held nothing today. The trail, however, had loads of singing landbirds. A third is the wetland at the entrance to Wahkeena Preserve. The Preserve was closed today, but you could still bird the wetland from the road, and it had geese, Ring-necked Ducks, and red-winged blackbirds.
Finally, there are borrow pits, where the wetland was created after the soil was removed for some other reason. A good example is the Coonpath Road pond northwest of Lancaster, where the US33 bypass starts. It was created for a railroad grade and then enlarged by the bypass. It was hopping today, with a large swarm of dabblers that included mallards, shovelers, wigeon, green-winged teal, black duck, and gadwalls. Throw in geese and some Ring-necked Ducks, Lesser Scaup, and Hooded Mergansers, and you can see that it was the busiest wetland I visited.
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