We did our annual pilgrimage to the Ohio River Valley, focusing on Adams County, but with forays into Brown & Kentucky. We stopped at several areas along the River (Ohio River Bluffs, Kope Hollow, Whipple State Nature Preserve), as well as several spots on the edge of the Bluegrass area (Ohio Brush Creek, Lynx Prairie, Kamama Prairie, Quiverheart Gorge). Wildflowers and butterflies had a banner weekend at most of these places, but birds were a more mixed story. Many neotropicals were already singing in expected areas here, but obvious migrants seemed rather scarce, echoing Sandra's experience at neighboring Shawnee State Forest.
In most of the forest blocks, early migrant residents were already setting up, and birds like Scarlet Tanagers, White-eyed & Red-eyed Vireos, Ovenbirds, Hooded Warblers, and Prairie Warblers were abundant in the right habitats. Riparian birds like Great Crested Flycatchers, Parula Warblers, Yellow-throated Warblers, and Baltimore Orioles seemed very conspicuous in their habitats. There are few large forest blocks here, so specialists like Worm-eating, Black&White, and Cerulean Warblers were hard to find. Obvious migrants were downright scarce; either they took advantage of the fine weather to overfly the area, or their numbers have become low enough that they are just difficult to find in all these forest fragments. This stands in stark contrast to the fewer, more scattered forest blocks of central Ohio, which apparently had a good fallout over the weekend.
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