BUGS & BIRDS UP CLOSE, A FREE PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION BY RICHARD SCHNUERER AND DAVID GREENBERG CONTINUES (January 15-March 13, 2022)
 

For information and entry form click HERE.  Deadline to enter is March 15, 2022
 

 

Visit the center during Ashley's studio hours (Tuesday & Thursday 10a-1p and Sunday 12p-5p)

Follow along as Ashley creates a series of comics featuring two characters, Bub and Sol, who go on adventures together. Through their curiosity and humor you can learn more about the Grange Insurance Audubon Center and all the creatures and environments it supports.

Bub and Sol are best friends always looking for adventure. Bub is a ping pong of emotion whose curiosity is hard to contain. Sol provides wisdom and direction especially when Bub needs help staying grounded. Together they explore new environments and share the lessons they learn along the way. Follow their adventures on Instagram @bubandsol

To learn more about Ashley www.ashdpierce.com

In addition to her Bub and Sol comic, Pierce creates works on wood panel. Using watercolor to allow the grain of the wood to show through, Pierce finishes her pieces by carving details with a Dremel tool. Follow along as artist-in-residence Ashley D. Pierce creates a series of comics featuring two characters, Bub and Sol, who go on adventures together. Through their curiosity and humor you can learn more about the Grange Insurance Audubon Center and all the creatures and environments it supports
 

SIP AND PAINT WITH WINE & CANVAS!

Sign up now for our 2022 Sip & Paint afternoons with Wine and Canvas! Enjoy an indoor fire with wine and hot beverages to sip while creating your masterpiece! Register HERE

• "Earth Day" Sunday April 24, 1pm-4pm
• "Fall Harvest" Saturday October 29, 1pm-4pm
• "Winter Cardinal" Saturday December 17, 1pm-4pm

OTHER PROGRAMS, EVENTS & ACTIVITIES TO EXPLORE!

WINTER WARM-UP WEEKENDS: Stop in on Saturdays and Sundays from 1p-3p to warm up around our indoor fireplace with a hot beverage.
 
SATURDAY MORNING BEGINNER BIRD WALKS: These guided walks are offered every Saturday and led by Columbus Audubon Society Chapter volunteers at 10am - Register HERE

BECOME A SEASONAL BIRDER! Pick up a Seasonal Birder log to start recording your bird sightings. Log in eight bird sightings each season (three must be seen at the Scioto Audubon Metro Park) and you earn a Seasonal Birder adventure button. Collect them all!
 
AUDUBON ADVENTURE BUTTONS! Start collecting yours today!  Find out how you can earn and collect the following buttons: Membership, Building Scavenger Hunt, Beginner Bird Walk, Adventures Backpacks, Preschool Adventures and Winter Birder.

NEW WINTER LANTERN WALKS (SELECT WEDNESDAY (Adults Only) AND SATURDAY(Family) EVENINGS IN FEBRUARY (6:30pm-8pm) Enjoy the beauty and quiet of the winter season with a lantern walk.  After the walk, warm up with a cup of hot chocolate while enjoying the fire inside the center.  Register HERE

WEDNESDAY WINTER AUDUBON ADVENTURES FOR PRESCHOOLERS: A wonderful outing to share with your preschooler every other Wednesday at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center.  Information and registration HERE

AUDUBON ADVENTURE SUMMER CAMP 2022 REGISTRATION IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER! Click HERE for more information!

For a complete listing of center events, CLICK HERE

By Jeff Grabmeier

 

 

 
Originally posted on Ohio State News:
https://news.osu.edu/the-perilous-migratory-journey-of-the-eastern-whip-poor-will/
 
Using GPS tags attached to the birds, researchers discovered some surprising facts about the long migrations that Eastern Whip-poor-wills make from their Midwest breeding grounds to where they winter in Mexico and Central America.
 
The results showed that birds from across the Midwest – including Ohio – all traveled a similar migratory path and moved at nearly the same time in the fall, concentrating the population in a small area of parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas and east Texas on a single day in early October.
 
That highlights a critical danger to the whip-poor-will population, which has already declined by nearly 70% in recent decades, said Christopher Tonra, co-author of the study and associate professor of avian wildlife ecology at The Ohio State University.
 
“About half of the entire population of whip-poor-wills breed in the Midwest, and our findings indicate their migration south is very synchronized,” he said.
 
“That suggests we have to protect the forested habitat in that small area of Oklahoma, Arkansas and east Texas, which is a vital migratory stopover. And we must find ways to protect the birds as they all move through the highly urbanized areas of east Texas,” he said.
 
The study, led by Aaron Skinner, a graduate student at Ohio State, was published recently in the journal Diversity and Distributions.
 
Whip-poor-wills are cryptic, seldom-seen nocturnal birds named after the sound of the calls that they make, often for hours at a time, during summer nights in the forests where they breed. Due mostly to this song, whip-or-wills are a common cultural reference in country songs, poems, stories and legends.
 
“I associate whip-poor-wills with camping in eastern forests and hearing them call through the night,” Tonra said.
 
“The idea of them disappearing is very alarming, and we’re trying to learn more about what may be causing their decline.”
 
The researchers captured and tagged whip-or-wills in five breeding areas across four midwestern states: Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio. There were two sites in Ohio: Oak Openings in northwest Ohio and Vinton Furnace State Forest in southern Ohio.
 
The birds were fitted with archival GPS tags, which meant that the researchers had to recapture them the following year to collect the GPS data. (Most whip-poor-wills return to the same breeding site year after year.)
 
The researchers got usable data from 52 of the 115 birds they tagged in the summers of 2017 and 2019. The study focuses on fall migration because complete data on all 52 birds was only available for the journey south.
 
Findings showed that, unlike some other species of birds, breeding populations of whip-or-wills from across the Midwest all share a similar migratory path and travel at about the same time, Tonra said.
 
The path is so similar that on one date in early October in one year of the study, all the GPS-tagged birds were within about 300 miles of each other in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas.
 
“These birds started their journey in four different states, from northern Wisconsin to southern Ohio,” Tonra said.
 
“To have them all end up so near each other on the same day of migration is remarkable.”
 
One reason that their paths were so similar is that whip-poor-wills, unlike other species of birds, avoided flying over the Gulf of Mexico to reach Mexico and Central America, the study found.  As a result, the birds were concentrated in a small area of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas as they made their way around the Gulf.
 
This finding shows the importance of forest management efforts in that area of those states, Tonra said.
 
Another issue is that the migratory path takes many whip-or-wills through four major urban areas in Texas: Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Houston.
 
Like many bird species, whip-poor-wills migrate at night and can be disoriented by the bright lights of cities, Tonra said. They often are attracted to the light and end up dying in building collisions.
 
“Studies show that whip-poor-wills are at particularly high risk for high-rise building collisions and so that could be a significant source of mortality for them, especially in early October,” Tonra said.
 
Some cities in the United States have instituted “lights out” programs during migration to protect birds that are passing through, he said. Such programs could be particularly helpful in Texas.
 
The findings showed that nearly all the birds from the Midwest breeding sites wintered in the same general area in southern Mexico and Guatemala.
 
In contrast, some species of birds that breed in different areas of the United States and Canada also winter in different areas in Mexico, and Central and South America, Tonra said.
 
These findings have implications for possible causes of the rapid population decline of the species.
 
Tonra noted that while the overall population of whip-or-wills is in decline, populations in some breeding areas in the United States are relatively stable, while other populations have disappeared or are in decline.
 
This fact, coupled with the finding that nearly all the birds wintered in the same area, suggest that whip-poor-wills may face their greatest challenges here in their U.S. breeding grounds, Tonra said.
 
“If the wintering grounds were the major problem, we should see similar population declines in all their different breeding areas, which is not what is happening,” he said.
 
One issue may be the decline in insect populations on some of their breeding grounds.  Whip-or-wills are insectivores, eating mostly moths on the wing.
 
Tonra said the researchers are planning a project to trap moths on current breeding grounds, as well as in areas where whip-poor-wills have disappeared, to see if declines in moth populations may have played a role.
 
Other co-authors of the study were James Wright, a graduate student, and Stephen Matthews, an associate professor of wildlife landscape ecology, both at Ohio State; Michael Ward, Thomas Benson and Ian Souza-Cole, all from the University of Illinois; and Frank Thompson III from the United States Forest Service.
 
Funding for the study came from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, the Association of Field Ornithologists, and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center.

By Rob Thorn
 

As compiler of the Columbus CBC, hardly a year goes by when I get someone who wonders how we can run a bird count in such an urban area. I smile, and carefully explain that our combination of parks, feeders, fruit trees, and slightly milder weather actually makes for a lot of interesting habitats. But lately, I’ve come to realize that it’s more than just those reasons. Our urban area is redefining habitat islands.   We used to think of habitat islands as patches of woods or stretches of riparian streamside, but the birds are forcing us to expand our definition.

 
As I write this, one of the hottest areas to bird in Columbus is an ugly stretch of retention ponds in the warehouse district of Obetz, along Rohr Rd. Among the Canada Geese frequenting these ponds have been Snow Geese and a Brant, not to mention a spate of unusual ducks.  And it’s not the only spot like this.  Another ‘warehouse jungle’ out in West Jefferson has also started to attract goose flocks that include rarities.  I would never have thought of these “pop-up wetlands” as birding habitat, but the birds proved me wrong. They have food, stay mostly open, and have few predators, so the water birds have staked their claim.
 
Perhaps even scarcer and more interesting are the “field islands,” patches of large fields that have become surrounded by urban Columbus’ sprawl. Probably the most famous of these is OSU’s Waterman Farm. This farm on West Campus, in the middle of the city, regularly hosts unusual birds, from nesting Savannah and Grasshopper Sparrows to wintering Horned Larks and Longspurs. It also seems to attract all manner of rarities, and is one of our most valuable territories on the Columbus Christmas Bird Count. 
 
Fields are the most common Ohio habitat, so there’s little reason to suspect that Waterman should be anything special. But as realtors say, it’s the “location, location, location”. Unlike a farm field in Madison County, say, Waterman is the only farm field for miles in Columbus. It acts as a beacon to any wandering or migrating field birds in the area, and seems to accumulate interesting birds throughout migration and winter.
 
It’s not the only “field island” in Columbus, though. The OSU Airport and Livestock Facility north of Case Rd. also is a magnet for field birds, and has also hosted a bevy of rarities.   Both this place and Waterman are NOT parks, however, so birders have to be careful not to interfere with the normal operations of the facilities.  In fact, we’ve already been restricted from much of the Livestock Facility off Case Rd. Similarly, the John Glenn Airport can have good birds, though it’s also difficult to bird; airport security takes a dim view of folks with binoculars around the runways!  Finally, the under-birded Smith Farm Area of 3 Creeks Park has also produced a steady stream of open country birds.  It, thankfully, has few restrictions on birders, other than a paucity of parking.
 
Sadly, these 4 are about all that is left of large fields inside I-270. There are still a few farm fields in south Columbus, especially along the Blacklick Creek Greenway and around the large railyard along Corr Ave, where the noise & pollution keep land values low.  But the rise in Columbus land values has quickly pushed most other close fields into development, especially in the valuable areas along the north arc of I-270.   There, it takes a deliberate creation of parks to preserve open meadows, as in Sharon Woods and Glacier Ridge Metro Parks, Coffman and Trabue Parks in Dublin, or the in-development Taylor Farms Park of New Albany.
 
What’s the trade-off when fields become such a scarce commodity? Well, as the CBC numbers attest, open-country birds have become scarce in Columbus. Birds like Kestrels, Harriers, White-crowned Sparrows, Horned Larks, and Blackbirds are now pretty much restricted to the few field areas mentioned above, and have become much less common. Yes, you can get all of them by driving out to Battelle Darby Metro Park or up to Big Island and Killdeer Plains. But they used to be here, and it should make us uneasy that such a robust habitat has silently slipped away locally. On the plus side of the ledger, these field islands offer some terrific birding now, with the potential for unusual birds at nearly every trip.  They attract and concentrate the field birds, often better than the sprawling agricultural areas in surrounding counties. We just have to be careful not to annoy the folks working in these fields, or these valuable hotspots will be closed to us.