Butterflies of Shawnee

 Some of the best of spring butterflies can be found at Shawnee State Park and Forest.  Fortunately, this weekend I got to help lead trips for the 10th Annual OOS Conference with a couple of excellent butterfly experts.

Falcate Orange-tip 

One of our earliest lepidopteran fliers in Ohio, the Falcate Orange-tips can be quite a challenge to photograph.  It usually involves much running and shouting.  We were pretty lucky this day.

Leah beams upon her first Falcate Orange-tip

One young conference attendee, seemed to have a mesmerizing effect on the little bugs.  Leah is a Zane State student of one of our keynote speakers, Scott Albaugh.  She has a real love of butterflies and spent several years monitoring them at The Wilds.

 Dean and Patty look on as leader Troy Shively displays a salamander for the group.  Sam (in green) was ultimately the luckiest guy at the conference, and now a big fan of conservation!  We filled the cooler early morning hours with birding and salamandering, until it was warm enough for the butterflies to fly.

Dave Horn displays his belt net-carry system.

 Dave Reipenhoff and Dave Horn also led this trip.  We were flush with butterflying talent!  Dave Horn is a retired professor OSU entomology professor with degrees from Harvard.  We soon enjoyed some friendly banter about his Ivy League education being far more impressive than my "poison ivy" league degree!

Henry's Elfin

 We found another southern Ohio specialty butterfly, the diminutive Henry's Elfin.  We were able to find a total of ten or more for the tour.  Henry's are what we call "rare but locally-common."  Once you develop a search image for them, one can find them in good numbers, where they occur.  Their host plant is the Eastern Redbud, which was in full bloom for our conference along many forest roads.

Thanks to my fellow guides, we had a great time and amassed a respectable list of both birds and butterflies. Let's not wait ten years before we do it again!

Headlands at Dawn

One of greater Cleveland's most noted hot-spots for birds, Headlands Beach ( Mentor, Ohio) was just one of the locations for OOS field trips last weekend.


Northern Saw-whet Owl- photo by Judy Semroc

Near the main entrance to the beach front trail, a Northern Saw-whet Owl was found resting in a tree. These micro-owls, not much larger than a man's fist, are known for daytime napping in grapevine tangles. They can be extremely difficult to locate- even when you know where to look! But once they are found, they seem tolerate the annoying human presence with aplomb.




After sufficient gawking at the owl, our group proceeded to the grass covered sand dunes just beyond the beach. We were in search of warblers and rare sparrows, but we were not above looking at any common species either. While the rest of the group focused on the Eastern Bluebirds, Swamp Sparrows, and a couple of Nashville Warblers, I became more interested in what they were feeding on.

The predominate grass, with arching, fuzzy seed heads, is the state listed Coastal Little Bluestem, Schizachyrium littorale. Any disturbance of the stems sent up a puff of airborne midges- the perfect migrating warbler fuel. As swirling insects were rising with the sunlight and warming temperatures, birds began feeding mid-air.

Want birds? Find their food source. And while botany does not drive midge production, it was certainly providing habitat for them.

Often called "Muffleheads" due to the feathery antennae on the males, these nearly invisible fliers are fascinating if you take a closer look!


Most species of Chironomid midges should be considered beneficials- and do no harm- other than the annoyance they create for some homeowners. They are often listed as bio-indicators, and a measure of a healthy ecosystem, but most of the interesting reading on the fuzzy headed bird-food is produced by agencies promoting means for killing them. I would think you might use ecological controls, like promoting Eastern Bluebirds as a means to control them. However, most publications promote electrocution (bug zappers), poisoning the aquatic nymphs or spraying the adults without impunity.

Kind of makes it hard for a warbler to eek out a living, doesn't it?



Two of the most amazing field trip leaders, Judy Semroc and Larry Rosche clearly understand the connection between nature's gift of insects and our beloved birds. It is not a matter of taking the good with the bad, but rather understanding nature is many things... and beauty can be found even in the life-cycle of a fuzzy-headed midge.

OOS Rocks Cleveland

It is my good fortune to be on the board of one of Ohio's largest and most active birding organizations. Each year we gather to hold our annual meeting and conference, and this year we rocked Cleveland, at the beautiful Radisson in Eastlake .



This morning was filled with field trips and a Lake Erie pelagic. Our group met up at Dike 14 - the only undeveloped land within eye-shot of downtown Cleveland. It is the remains of a dredging operation's spoil pile, and now offers some of the best sparrow watching in Cleveland.


Our stellar group of leaders, including Craig Caldwell, Dan Sanders and Jim McCormac helped us sort out the host of fall migrants. We even determined that every birder in Ohio has been on at least one Jim McCormac-led field trip, somewhere, sometime.




It was my honor to present Jim with a gift from the whole society, in honor of his 6 years dedicated to the OOS as the Inaugural President. From its humble beginnings - a letter of interest from Ed Pierce which started a series of small group meeting in Wooster, Ohio- the OOS was "fledged" in 2004. Combined with with Jim's first book release- Birds of Ohio- it was a perfect storm.

Jim relentlessly toured the state giving programs and book signings, all the while promoting OOS. His enthusiasm for birding and conservation was the eye of the OOS hurricane, and in a few short years membership sky-rocketed to nearly 800.




A photo of Jim's award- a Black Scoter.
OOS has given a number of awards in the past-lovely duck decoys- created by Tim and Laura Dornan. Usually we give a Wood Duck, but we knew Jim's heart has been set on adding a Black Scoter to his personal collection of "Dornan Decoys." Special thanks to Tim and Laura for helping us pull this off!



The Keynote Speaker was Drew Wheelan of the ABA, on the Deepwater Disaster.

OOS is donating half of our proceeds to a Gulf Relief effort, and half to the Safe Flight program headed up by Harvey Webster at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

There were two awesome days of field trips, and many of us got two see Nelson's and LeConte's Sparrows at Wake Robin Trail. We counted ourselves very lucky. It was a wonderful conference, and the field trips were full of fall migration birds.

6th Annual OOS Conference

The OOS is proud to bring ABA's Drew Wheelan to our conference on October 9th. We hope you will join us for the full conference, but if you are unable to attend the entire weekend's festivities, you can now sign up forDrew's Saturday night presentation.

Drew will present a first-hand account of the effects of the disaster in theGulf on birds and bird habitat, and subsequent efforts to clean it up. He will also examine wildlife response efforts and behind-the-scenes politics, including rehabilitation and recovery efforts. You can read Drew's blog at: http://birding.typepad.com/gulf/

Please visit the OOS website www.ohiobirds.org for further details, or click on the link under the announcement of our 6th Annual Conference in the side bar of this blog.

OOS 5th Annual Conference- Whirlwind Days

The last three days have FLOWN by- (a little birding conference humor :) - with great friends, good times and amazing birds.

Friday night was the Shade-grown Coffee House promoting conservation and fun. KatDoc and McCormac covered that pretty well, and let me just add- we may be on to a new thing. Folks had a great time enjoying Thompson's "mellow" and the various poems. Any time our crew gets together, we are sure to have fun.

Jim Berry of RTPI and Larry Richardson checking out the warbler action at Magee Marsh.

Saturday Morning on the Magee Boardwalk tuned up to be an awesome day as well. It turned out to be a regular who's who of birds and BIRDERS. Mega-birders, including Jon Dunn, Paul Baicich, Jim Berry and Larry Richardson were also cruising the boardwalk and calling out birds. I cannot say enough about the generous spirit of birders, and their willingness to share their finds.

BT3 (Bill Thompson III), Jim McCormac, KatDoc and others, working on "warbler neck" at Magee.

Before our conference even started we were have more fun than should be legal, checking out the birds and enjoying the humor of two of Ohio's wittiest birders: Bill Thompson and Jim McCormac. If you can't bird with the big dogs, stay home on the porch! Thanks to these guys for their willingness to share a lifetime of incredible birding knowledge. Learning and fun go "binoculars in hand" when you are hanging out with the OOS crowd.

Thanks to everyone who pitched in to make this event possible: especially the OOS volunteers- Kathy Mock, Judy and Hugh Rose, Marc Nolls, Julie Davis, Jackie Bain, Dana Bollin, Karen Menard, Jim Sloan, Susan Madura, Sheryl (can't spell my name right) Young, Jen Sauter and Peter King- we couldn't do it without you!

More fun, and more photos, of birds, botany and butterflies- after I unpack my bags!

OOS Conference at the Oak Openings

Need a good excuse to plan a trip to see Wild Lupines, Karner blue butterflies and neotropical warblers? Put this on your calendar:



The Ohio Ornithological Society's 2009 Conference and Annual banquet will be held May 16th, a sensational time to be in the Oak Openings and Lake Erie marsh regions. The staging ground is the beautiful Holiday Inn-French Quarter in Perrysburg, located only a stone’s throw from the Oak Openings’ best habitats, and an easy drive from such iconic western Lake Erie birding locales as Magee Marsh Wildlife Area and its legendary bird trail.
The Saturday-only conference will feature three nationally known speakers, Kim Kaufman, Director of Black Swamp Bird Observatory, and Jim Berry of Roger Tory Peterson Institute will present in the afternoon. Both are outstanding and you won't want to miss them! After Saturday evening's dinner, Jim McCormac, President of the OOS will give a program titled Oak Openings: Desert of Diversity, based on twenty years of visits to document its rare flora and fauna. Visit vendors, browse educational displays, and enjoy good conversation with fellow birdwatchers during the dinner buffet.

Even though the conference is officially only one day, there'll be plenty of great opportunities on the days that bookend it. Plan to visit one or more of the featured destinations, as the Oak Openings is Ohio’s only stronghold for Lark Sparrows, and harbors breeding Summer Tanagers, Blue Grosbeaks, Whip-poor-wills, Blue-headed Vireos and much more.


The date of the conference will also be good for catching late migrants such as Connecticut Warbler at Magee Marsh and the famous "Boardwalk." The conference packet will provide directions to seven great locations, ready to showcase the best they have to offer for our attendees. Hope to see you at “The Oaks!”

For Registration Click here or visit Jim McCormac's blog for more info.