birds

Pint-sized predator

sbradford — Tue, 26 May 2026 15:12:28 +0000

Pint-sized predator

June 1, 2026

You might see one while you’re driving down an interstate highway or a country road: a relatively small, robin-sized bird that you might not think much about until you realize that it’s hovering 50 feet or so in the air, intently staring down at the grassy road berm below.

You’ve very likely spotted an American kestrel, the Buckeye State’s smallest falcon; if you’re really lucky, you may see the bird dive, hit the ground feet-first with talons extended, then fly off carrying an unsuspecting victim: insect, mouse, vole, or even another small bird.

More commonly known in years past as sparrow hawks, kestrels measure just a foot or less in body length, but have a wingspan of up to 2 feet, which aids them in their unique hovering style of hunting.

Despite their small size, kestrels possess the same fierce, intense nature of larger falcons, such as the peregrine, which also lives in Ohio. Kestrels, however, are no match for peregrines’ speed. In level flight, peregrines have been clocked at 70 miles per hour, and in a steep dive known as a stoop, they can reach 200 mph — the fastest creature on earth!

What makes a falcon a falcon? In other words, what special characteristics separate falcons from other birds of prey?

“Falcons look like hawks, but they’re not very closely related,” says Kevin McGowan, a native Ohioan and professional ornithologist who works as an avian educator for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York. “Both falcons and hawks are fast-flying daytime predators that capture prey with the strong talons on their feet and rip them up with their sharp down-curved bills. But falcons are built for speed, with long, pointed wings and long tails. Hawks and eagles have broad, blunt wings that are made for soaring and using updrafts to travel long distances without beating a wing. Falcons can soar a bit, but they prefer to flap their wings, and do it fast, to get where they want to go.”

McGowan says there are other “modifications in design” that set them apart from hawks. “Falcons typically have a dark ‘mustache’ mark on their faces: broad and bold on a peregrine, weaker and thinner on a merlin or gyrfalcon, and small and precise on a kestrel,” he says. “Falcons also have a ‘tomial tooth,’ a notch on the cutting edge of their upper bill that they use to kill their prey by cutting through the spine. They also have a bony tubercle in each nostril that may help them breathe better when traveling at high speeds, kind of like a hood scoop on a fast car.”

Kestrels are the smallest and most numerous falcons not only in Ohio but in all of North America. Yet even though they’re a predator, sometimes the hunter can become the hunted. Kestrels are preyed upon by other raptors, both diurnal and nocturnal: goshawks, red-tailed hawks, barn owls, sharp-shinned and Cooper’s hawks, even crows.

Kestrels have played an important part in wildlife conservation history. During the late 20th century, they were the principal species used to document the accumulation of harmful pesticides in birds of prey. That discovery, in turn, ultimately led to the recovery of the bald eagle population in Ohio and across the U.S.

A little-known fact about kestrels is that they’re avid baseball fans, especially fond of night games. Perching on light poles, foul poles, and other high vantage points surrounding a lighted baseball diamond, the birds seem to enjoy the game like anyone else. Occasionally, they’ll swoop down into the powerful stadium light beams to catch a snack of a moth or other winged insect. Many of those nocturnal hunting flights at ball games have been caught on camera, becoming part of national TV sports coverage — sure beats waiting in line at the concession stand.

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In search of...

sbradford — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 18:59:47 +0000

In search of...

March 1, 2026

Decades ago, when I was a much younger man, I was a serious waterfowl hunter. I enjoyed the history and traditions of the sport nearly as much as the hunting itself — so much so that for several years, I owned and hunted from an original Dan Kidney sneak boat, built by the legendary boatbuilder in 1919 at his shop in DePere, Wisconsin. A buddy and I hunted from the antique wooden craft for several years, mainly offshore along the famous Lake Erie marshes that ring the lake’s Western Basin, as well as on adjoining Sandusky Bay.

One species of waterfowl, however, always seemed to elude us: the so-called king of ducks — the canvasback.

Large, handsome, fast-flying birds, canvasbacks were not exactly numerous during those years, but they were plentiful enough to be considered fair game. No matter how hard we hunted, however, we never bagged a single one.

I retired from duck hunting and sold the boat decades ago, but in truth, I never totally lost the desire to bag a “bull can,” as hunters call the male (or drake) canvasback. Recently, I realized that I’m not getting any younger, and I decided that if I’m ever going to do it, I should probably do it soon. And I knew exactly where to begin my “hunt.”

The Ohio Decoy Collectors and Carvers Association (www.odcca.net) holds its annual, weekend-long show and sale in mid-March just south of Cleveland, this year’s gathering being the 47th. Open to the public with a nominal admission charge, it’s a celebration of all things waterfowl, from vintage duck decoys to present-day, intricately carved and hand-painted nongame birds that look as if they could come alive in your hand if you picked them up. There are also decoy carving and painting demonstrations, as well as serious competitions to determine the most lifelike birds.

The yearly ODCCA show and sale runs concurrently with the annual meeting of the Great Lakes Decoy Association, so it’s really a combination of two shows in the same location at the same time, and Brad Falkinburg, the ODCCA president, tells me it’s the largest collecting and carving show in the Midwest.

Adam Grimm (www.adamgrimm.com), a full-time professional wildlife artist, will return to the event this year to meet and greet attendees and display some of his award-winning artwork. Grimm, who was born and raised in Ohio and now lives in South Dakota, is a bona fide celebrity in the field. For a wildlife artist to win the federal “Duck Stamp” art contest — the oldest and most prestigious wildlife art competition in America — even once is a career-defining moment. Grimm has won three times.

He was just 21 years old and studying at the Columbus College of Art and Design in 2000 when he won the award for the first time with a painting of a single mottled duck (he’s still the youngest artist ever to earn the award). He took the top prize again in 2014 with his rendering of a pair of canvasbacks, and he won for the third time in 2024 with a painting of a pair of spectacled eiders. I interviewed him shortly after that first win and immediately became a fan of his art, rooting him on from the sidelines ever since.

Incidentally, only two other Ohio wildlife artists have ever won the federal Duck Stamp competition: Bob Hines in 1946 and John Ruthven in 1960 — both with paintings of redhead ducks.

But back to my quest to bag my long-sought-after bull can. Mission accomplished! At the 2025 ODCCA show, I met Robert Lewis of Eastpointe, Michigan, who’s been carving and painting waterfowl decoys professionally for half a century. His work included a beautiful drake canvasback in a resting pose (see photo on the far left) and I ordered one then and there. The bird arrived by mail a few months later, and now sits on my writing desk, forever snoozing, with its head resting comfortably on its back.

W.H. “Chip” Gross is Ohio Cooperative Living’s outdoors editor. Email him with your outdoors questions at whchipgross@gmail.com. Be sure to include “Ask Chip” in the subject of the email. Your question may be answered on www.ohiocoopliving.com! 

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birding

The good, the bad, & the ugly duckling

sbradford — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 18:25:02 +0000

The good, the bad, & the ugly duckling

February 1, 2026

There are three categories of waterfowl that frequent the Buckeye State: ducks, geese, and swans. Swans are by far the largest of them — weighing 20 pounds or more, with wingspans measuring nearly 8 feet. There are just three swan species in Ohio (tundra swan, mute swan, and trumpeter swan), but it can be a challenge to make a positive identification at a distance, as they are all snow-white and relatively the same size.

As you get closer, though, the differences become more apparent, so grab your binoculars and let’s head outdoors.

Tundra swan (the good)

The tundra swan is Ohio’s only native swan. Large flocks of them migrate through the state late in February and March on their way north to nest in the High Arctic, then come back with their young cygnets the following November and December, especially along the shores of Lake Erie. If you have an older bird ID book, the tundra swan may be identified as a “whistling swan.”

According to Kevin McGowan, an avian educator with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York, “The name whistling swan was changed to tundra swan in 1983 because it was lumped with the Bewick’s swan of Eurasia and considered the same species.” So, how best to identify the tundra swan/whistling swan from the two other Ohio swan species? Look for the yellow lore, a small, bright-yellow mark immediately in front of each eye at the rear of the bird’s black bill.

Mute swan (the ‘bad’)

Mute swans are identified by their orange bill with a black knob at the base; while swimming, they also tend to hold their head and neck in a downward “S” curve. Many ornithologists consider the mute swan less than desirable because it’s a nonnative species that was introduced to North America in the mid-1800s. The first Ohio nesting in the wild was documented in 1987. The problem with mute swans is their natural aggression. As their numbers have increased, they’ve outcompeted native waterfowl for food and nesting sites.

I witnessed this behavior firsthand during the spring of 2024 while visiting East Point Nature Preserve on Lake Erie’s Middle Bass Island. A pair of mute swans had established a nest site, and I watched the female repeatedly reach down to the bottom of the shallow marsh with her long neck, pulling up long, thin sticks with her bill to add to the nest. In the meantime, her mate was constantly patrolling the entire wetland, chasing off any other waterfowl that attempted to land.

Trumpeter swan (the Ugly Duckling)

Here’s where swan ID gets a bit trickier. Trumpeter swans look similar to tundra swans, but lack the yellow lore at the base of the bill. Trumpeters are also larger in body size than tundras, but that’s often difficult to determine if the species are not close enough together for comparison. The best characteristic to look for when identifying a trumpeter swan is its combination wedge-shaped head and black bill.

Trumpeter swans were nearly hunted to extinction more than a century ago in North America. Thankfully, the unregulated slaughter was stopped just in time, when less than 100 known trumpeter swans remained. During the ensuing years, a national conservation plan to recover the birds was developed, and Ohio became part of that effort.

In the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale titled “The Ugly Duckling,” a young duck is so large and awkward that it is expected to grow into a particularly ugly adult duck. Instead, it turns out that the bird wasn’t a duck after all, and grows up to become a beautiful, graceful swan. It’s a story with a happy ending, just as the real story of the trumpeter swan is.

Trumpeters were removed from the state’s threatened species list in 2024, culminating a 28-year effort by the ODNR, Division of Wildlife, to restore a population of trumpeter swans within the state. Today, Ohio’s trumpeter swan population stands at nearly 1,000 birds, with pairs nesting in 26 counties, their unique, trumpeting calls once again heard emanating across Buckeye wetlands.

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Stocking splurge

sbradford — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 15:11:35 +0000

Stocking splurge

December 1, 2025

If you know someone who’s really ready to raise their birding game in 2026 (even if that someone is you), a spotting scope might be just the thing. A caveat: Due to a somewhat hefty price tag — several hundred to several thousand dollars — spotting scopes are not for the beginning birder, and they shouldn’t be a last-minute decision, because you’ll want to put some thought into choosing the right one.

My wife and I decided to make such a scope a combined gift to each other a year ago, and we have been thrilled.

Not knowing where or how to begin our search for a quality spotting scope, I first contacted Jim McCormac, one of Ohio’s best birders and the author of the bird-identification guide Birds of Ohio, who recommended a visit to Time & Optics near Millersburg. “Robert Hershberger and his people probably know more about optics than anyone in the state,” he told me. So that’s what I did. And I learned a lot.

“We began as a small gift shop and watch-repair business in 1976,” says Hershberger, who owns the shop. “So next year will be our 50th year in business. We always had a few pairs of binoculars for sale, and I began birding when I was a teenager, so the optics side of the business grew out of that hobby. Today, we carry 18 brands of optics, with 200 to 300 pairs of binoculars on display, and 20 to 30 spotting scopes, as well as telescopes for stargazing.”

If you’d like to gift a spotting scope to someone special this Christmas — including yourself — but can’t afford the price, here’s an idea: Consider giving them a gift card for even a small portion of the cost. It just may be the nudge they need to start that special “spotting scope fund.”

Things to keep in mind when purchasing a spotting scope

Robert Hershberger of Time & Optics near Millersburg offers these tips to those considering the purchase of a new spotting scope:

Budget: “When a birder enters our store, I show them three options: a scope at their price range, then one above and one below. That lets a person compare the differences in quality and operation.”
Use: “Will the scope stay indoors, used to view birds near home bird feeders, or will they be taking the scope outdoors into the field? Or will it be a combination? It makes a big difference.”
Size, weight, and length: “For instance, 75mm to 100mm would be considered a large spotting scope, while 50mm to 65mm is usually considered a smaller scope. The bigger the lens, the longer the scope, and that adds weight. But a bigger lens is helpful for gathering light, so it’s brighter during times with low light, such as dawn, dusk, or on cloudy days. Also, some customers confuse field of view (the amount of area you see while looking through a spotting scope) with the diameter of the objective lens, but those two measurements have nothing to do with each other. Field of view is determined by the scope’s eyepiece, not the size of its objective lens.”
Tripods and tripod heads: “If you mount a good-quality spotting scope on a poorly made tripod and tripod head you’ll be disappointed. So buy quality.”
Try before you buy: “There is only so much you can determine by shopping for spotting scopes online — so go shopping where you can actually handle and look through various scopes. I’ve found that customers are usually happier with what they purchase in person rather than online.”

W.H. “Chip” Gross is Ohio Cooperative Living’s outdoors editor. Email him with your outdoors questions at whchipgross@gmail.com. Be sure to include “Ask Chip” in the subject of the email.

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birding

Winter spirits

sbradford — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 18:04:52 +0000

Winter spirits

November 1, 2025

Craig Springer

Features

With its pointed crest and for its striking cardinal-red color alone, the northern cardinal is not only easy to notice, but also to remember and to appreciate. Lucky for us, it never leaves the home place.

November is fall’s fulcrum — the time when winter soon comes in earnest to slowly settle over the land like a thickening shadow. A whole host of bird species that chirped and tweeted and bounded over our yards and parks, fields and woodlots over the summer has long since left for warmer climes in the Deep South and beyond to South America to ride out our cold spell.

They will be back. But in the meantime, we get to enjoy our delightful redbird. The northern cardinal will still be around, in town and about the countryside — a crimson-red shard with wings, flitting about in shrubs and trees, around wood piles, and along forest edges.

The colorful northern cardinal lives over the entirety of Ohio, and that alone is reason enough for the state legislative assembly to name it the official state bird. There are other meritorious reasons that call forth warm approval and high regard.

Its collection of sixteen unique songs is one good reason. The northern cardinal never stops singing throughout the year. Spring brings with it a crescendo of bird song from those recently arrived from the South as they prepare to nest, claiming aloud what is their own turf; the bachelor birds vociferously call out their eligibility.

But our redbird goes at it throughout the year, most commonly calling out a sharp singular chirp that sounds like an icepick hitting a piece of stainless steel — a call reserved for warning other family members of potential danger. Boldly perched atop shrubs and trees where all can see, a male northern cardinal sings out a serried sharp pur-tee, pur-tee, pur-tee with an upswing at the end. They also let out a cheer, cheer, cheer, with descending notes. Winter, spring, summer — or in November — their crisp calls arc through the air like hot sparks.

Much of their song is territorial in nature, staking out and defending their nesting sites and offspring. With the passing of winter, cardinals claim nest sites in trees and shrubs, with males aggressively warding off competing males. In courtship, the males feed insects and seeds to females.

Cardinals are by nature accustomed to laying only a few grayish-white speckled eggs that are tended to by both parents through incubation and fledging. That’s a period less than two weeks long. Putting less energy into brooding only a few eggs at a time allows cardinals to produce multiple broods going as late as August. Scientists have determined that cardinal eggs and fledglings are subjected to high rates of predation by mice and snakes and parasitization by brown-headed cowbirds. The cowbirds lay their eggs in cardinal nests, and the unwitting hosts raise the parasitic baby birds as their own. Only about 30% of cardinal eggs make it to fledglings. So cardinals produce multiple broods through the nesting period to get along. Cardinals fledged any later than August would not be fit and ready to face the perils of the arduous winter that is sure to follow.

But winter has beauty all its own. It is easy to imagine a leafless maple, or pines or red cedars, draped in snow and a redbird flitting about, a scenario that might leave a little fluttering in your heart on a cold, snowy day.

The cardinal impressed American culture; it is the official bird of seven states, and the Amtrak train the Cardinal runs through six of them on its glide between New York City and Chicago, including a stop in Cincinnati. It’s the mascot of sports teams, professional and collegiate, such as Otterbein University and Wheeling University; 14 Ohio high schools own a cardinal mascot.

What’s not to appreciate about the cardinal? As Ohio nature writer Julie Zickefoose puts forth in her book, The Bluebird Effect, “The presence of a single bird can change everything for one who appreciates them.”

So, put out a bird feeder this fall and get a closer look at the state bird. You might even consider taking part in Project Feeder Watch, which offers feeding tips. You can casually watch birds at home and contribute bird-watching data that will be useful to scientists at Cornell University and elsewhere. Participants can start at any time.

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birding

Fly, fly away

sbradford — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 17:48:22 +0000

Fly, fly away

November 1, 2025

Late one September many years ago, I was visiting Pointe Mouillee State Game Area at the mouth of the Detroit River along the western shoreline of Lake Erie in late September when I looked skyward and saw the most stunning example of fall bird migration I have ever witnessed.

Hundreds of broad-winged hawks were soaring, lazily, round and round in a huge flock about a quarter-mile high. Then, it was as if an invisible hand reached into the swirling flock and began drawing the raptors away a few at a time. Over the course of the next half-hour or so, all of the hawks gradually left the flock and disappeared from sight, heading southward in a long line like a string slowly being pulled off a rotating spool of thread.

The vivid image of that annual autumnal spectacle of migration remains in my mind’s eye yet today. But it has always made me stop and wonder: Why do some raptors migrate, while others don’t?

Kevin McGowan, who hails from Springfield, has been studying the question and others like it for a long time. He holds two degrees in zoology from Ohio State University and is now a professional ornithologist and educator with the prestigious Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Ithaca, New York. “I’ve been a birder since junior high school,” he says. “I grew up birding with the Clark County Audubon Society.”

He’s studied bird migration for years, and if anyone knows the answer to my nagging question, it’s McGowan. “For raptors, it’s all about finding food,” McGowan says. “If they can find enough food in their location year-round, they don’t migrate. If they can’t, then they must move.”

Of course, that also raises another question that’s just as fascinating as why some species of birds migrate and others don’t, and that is: How do they migrate? How do they know where they’re going — especially young-of-the-year fledglings? And how do they navigate during those arduous, dangerous, twice-per-year journeys north and south over hundreds if not thousands of miles? Some of the most recent bird migration research is revealed in author Scott Weidensaul’s latest book, A World on the Wing, which includes this fascinating tidbit:

When a bar-tailed godwit takes off from Alaska and flies across the widest part of the Pacific (a journey, research shows, that can take 11 days of nonstop flight), sleep obviously becomes an issue. A sleeping bird can’t fly; flying is not an autonomous function like breathing. Birds get around this problem through [big-word alert] unihemispheric sleep — putting one half of their brains to sleep for a few seconds at a time, alternating endlessly back and forth.

The avian world, like all of nature, is simply amazing…and likely even more so than we yet fully realize.

Three Migrating Raptors

Red-tailed hawk

According to McGowan, red-tailed hawks are the most widespread, most common, and most commonly seen raptor in North America. In Ohio, there are both resident and migrant populations of redtails — resident redtails remain in the state all year, breeding here, but the migrant redtails breed in Canada and return to the Buckeye State only during the winter months. “Again, it’s all about finding food,” he says. “For redtails as a species, food is generally easier to find in Ohio than Canada during the winter.”

Gyrfalcon

In contrast to red-tailed hawks, the gyrfalcon — the world’s largest falcon — is found in the highest latitudes of the Arctic tundra all across the Northern Hemisphere, where they feed on ptarmigans, a grouse-like bird. “Most of those birds spend the entire winter in the high Arctic in the dark and extreme cold, only occasionally migrating to southern Canada and the northern U.S.,” McGowan says.

Broad-winged hawk

McGowan confirmed that my encounter long ago with migrating broad-winged hawks, a common forest hawk of eastern North America, wasn’t just some fever dream. “They completely leave their breeding ground in the U.S. and Canada in the fall, migrating to South America for the winter,” he says. “They migrate in groups ornithologists call ‘kettles,’ made up of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of hawks.” He says the birds stage at locations conducive to migration, but don’t all ultimately end up in the same place in South America. “Broad-wings seem to get something social out of clustering together, but it’s a behavior we don’t yet totally understand.”

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A good ear

sbradford — Fri, 25 Apr 2025 19:25:30 +0000

A good ear

May 1, 2025

Learning any hobby is always easier with a mentor — even a virtual one. Take birding, for example. I’m no techie, but I have been using a smartphone app to learn bird songs and calls for the last couple of years, and I’ve been extremely impressed by its ease of use, accuracy, and just plain fun.

So if you are new to birding, or even if you’ve had a pair of binoculars hanging around your neck for years, this app can help. Best of all, it’s free!

Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Labs is available in Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store, or by clicking here. And not only is it free, it is also ad-free and there are no in-app purchases needed.

“The Merlin Bird ID app contains identification support and photos, sound recordings, maps, and descriptions for more than 10,000 bird species from around the world, with more species being added constantly,” says Kathi Borgmann, communications manager for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which developed and owns Merlin. “More than 29 million people worldwide have installed Merlin on their phones, with June 2024 seeing the greatest number of Merlin users, more than 5.4 million during that month alone.”

Borgmann says that the Cornell Lab of Ornithology offers the app for free because it’s their mission to advance the understanding and protection of wild birds. “We’re a nonprofit organization that is funded primarily by members and donors, so it is those generous people who help us provide Merlin at no charge.”

The pioneering sound-identification technology was integrated into the previously existing app in 2021. Merlin is aptly named for a small, fast, fierce falcon. It’s as easy to use as downloading the app to your smartphone, then going outdoors to listen for singing or calling birds. When you hear a nearby bird that you’d like to identify, simply point your phone toward the sound and push the app’s “Sound ID” button.

The app listens to the sound and makes a suggestion as to what bird species it’s hearing. Once the bird stops singing or you want to stop recording, simply push the stop button. You then have the option of listening to recordings of other individual birds of the same species, already loaded onto the app, to see if yours matches. That’s helpful because, just as people have different accents and dialects depending upon where they live, birds do too.

But wait, there’s more! You can also identify a bird by taking a photo of it with your smartphone’s camera, and the app will identify it. Or, you can answer five basic questions about a bird you saw and the app will make the identification based on the information you provide. As a test, I tried it on a common bird that everyone knows — a robin I saw mugging a worm in my backyard — and the app spit out the correct answer in no time. You can also explore a list of birds common to your area.

You don’t need the latest and greatest smartphone to take advantage of Merlin. For years I used an ancient iPhone 8, upgrading during the last year to an iPhone 15, and Merlin works well on both. By the way, the sound ID feature operates completely offline, so you can identify birds anywhere.

W.H. “Chip” Gross is Ohio Cooperative Living’s outdoors editor. Email him with your outdoors questions at whchipgross@gmail.com. Be sure to include “Ask Chip” in the subject of the email. Your question may be answered on www.ohiocoopliving.com!

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Ditch parrots

sbradford — Tue, 29 Oct 2024 14:54:26 +0000

Ditch parrots

November 1, 2024

I’m old enough to have witnessed the demise of much of the ring-necked pheasant population in Ohio firsthand. In the 1960s, I remember my father taking me on a pheasant hunt to private property in the northwest part of the state. We had a great time, and we returned on opening day the next year anticipating the same.

What we didn’t anticipate were the bulldozed fence rows, burned brush piles, and other forms of habitat destruction we found when we got there. Needless to say, we didn’t see many pheasants that November day and we never returned to that farm.

Ringneck numbers in Ohio peaked during the 1930s and ’40s, and have been on a steady downhill slide ever since. The reason for the decline is simple, as it is throughout the North American pheasant range: the disappearance of quality grassland habitat.

As goes the habitat, so goes the population of birds.

The Asian ring-necked pheasant is a non-native game bird to Ohio; the first stocking here occurred in 1896. The first law regulating the bird’s hunting soon followed, with no hunting permitted until Nov. 10, 1900. By that time, ringnecks had become well established throughout most of the state, with the population peaking at an astounding 5 million wild pheasants!

The birds (also known as “ditch parrots” because of their bright plumage as well as their tendency to lounge along roadsides) found the Ohio landscape, with its patchwork of small farm fields and rural areas, welcoming and homey during the early 20th century. Farming was still largely done with horses, so pastures and hayfields were needed to feed those horses, as well as milk cows. Brushy fencerows provided both cover from predators and travel lanes to and from the crop fields where the pheasants found an ample food supply. In essence, it was ringneck paradise.

“The booming pheasant population began drawing hunters from across the Midwest,” says Jim Abrams, a retired Ohio wildlife officer and a member of Hancock-Wood Electric Cooperative. “Hotels were filled and cash was changing hands in diners, bars, hardware stores, and gas stations. Small towns in northwest Ohio — Van Buren, Liberty Center, Arlington, Kalida, and others — became destinations not only for out-of-town hunters but for out-of-state hunters as well. The economic value of the high pheasant population was palpable.”

Hunting was for cock birds only (hens were protected by law) and some 750,000 were taken annually in the Buckeye State. Of course, sportsmen were known to make occasional mistakes identifying the sexes, as Abrams recounts:

“Many game wardens began suspecting that more than the legal daily limit of pheasants were being taken, so officers began conducting roadblock inspections of vehicles. Cursory inspection of game bags was the norm, but if an officer brought along his bird dog, things could get interesting.

“For example, in one instance an officer turned his dog loose around one of the stopped cars, and the hunters began getting a little nervous. The dog went on point on one of the vehicle’s wheels, and the officers soon discovered that the hunters had hidden a dead, illegal hen pheasant behind the hubcap.”

Chances are we will never again see wild ringnecks in numbers anywhere close to what they once were in the Buckeye State. Again, habitat is key, and the undisturbed grasslands required for pheasant nesting and survival are few and far between in modern-day Ohio.

Organizations are attempting to stem that downward trend. Along with the Ohio Division of Wildlife, private conservation and hunting groups such as Pheasants Forever are working on habitat restoration programs.

That said, if you are a landowner who would like to manage your property for ringnecks and other wild grassland birds — both game and nongame — either of those agencies would be a great place to start. Cost-sharing is available if your property qualifies.

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Ohio Division of Wildlife

Spring on the wing

sbradford — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 20:30:27 +0000

Spring on the wing

March 1, 2024