Our last Ornitholgy trip was to the Wilds Nature Preserve. Check out the website for more info, I'm still not sure what they do!
The general idea is a conservation "zoo" built on old reclaimed strip mine land, very cool idea. You can go on an Ohio "safari" and see endangered animals from all over the world. I don't know how I feel about that part, I'm not really a zoo person. Anyways, the park covers over 3,000 acres of prairie habitat which is great to watch raptors and large birds. I saw all sorts of strange mammals, some zebra, giraffe, and from a mile away what appeared to be some man-bear-pig. It was sad to see all the autumn olive all over the hillsides, a nasty invasive, but the still the same because birds seem to like it.
 |
| Northern Shrike |
 |
| Northern Harrier |
The first thing we saw were horned larks and eastern bluebirds. We saw some american goldfinch and two northern harriers which I speculate were a mating pair flying over a small pond. Some killdeer were down on the shore and 11 mallard ducks floating around in the water until we scared them off. The highlight of my trip was seeing a northern shrike, which impales its prey on sticks to mark its territorial boundaries! We also saw some american black ducks, many a canada goose, and a savanna sparrow up by the lookout.
 |
| American kestrel |
We later saw a bunch of Buteo species, which are some of my favorites. Red tailed hawk were soaring around looking for prey. We also saw an american kestrel, a beautiful bird and a first for me. The wilds has a lot of small lakes and ponds and we saw all kinds of waterfowl, including some bufflehead, lesser scaup, dunlin, spotted sandpiper, and gadwell. It was also very cool to see a yellow bellied sapsucker on the side of an old barn.
I can definitely say that I will miss being around so many knowledgeable people, Dr. Miles and Susan have taught me a lot about birds! It was great to be around so many passionate people. I feel like I might just be fledged from the nest and now I can make it in the world of birding.
No comments:
Post a Comment