Ohio Birds and Biodiversity

 

A marsh wren does the splits while peeking from cattails at Battelle Darby Metro Park/Jim McCormac

Nature: Distinctive singers, a variety of tiny wrens found in Ohio boast bold voices

Wrens are a small but outsized group of birds in Ohio. Only five species occur here (normally), but given their propensity for being chatterboxes, they can be conspicuous. Many readers host two species in their yards. The rusty-colored Carolina wren has a set of pipes that make it one of the louder voices among the feathered crowd. Its ringing tea-kettle, tea-kettle, tea-kettle song sounds like they’re pushed through a Marshall amp.

From spring to fall, house wrens are common in suburbia and elsewhere. Males issue a rollicking torrent of gurgling notes, as if the little bird cannot push them out fast enough, and the notes trip over themselves. House wrens take readily to nest boxes, so it’s an easy matter to establish them in your soundscape.

The most aurally eloquent of our wrens is the winter wren. This pipsqueak weighs but 9 grams and is only four inches long. Despite its Lilliputian dimensions, the winter wren’s aria puts the Three Tenors to shame. Males deliver a long complex song full of artful flourishes and scale runs that must be heard to be believed. The entrancing tumble of notes might last 10 seconds. Proportionate to size, a winter wren has 10 times the vocal strength of a crowing rooster. A rare Ohio breeder, winter wrens become fairly common in migration, and some remain through winter.

Probably our most obscure wren is the enigmatic sedge wren. These mousy little birds occupy grassy/sedgy prairies, pastures and wetlands. They are most easily detected by the males’ mechanical chattering song, which suggests a supercharged sewing machine. Sedges wrens are not particularly common in Ohio, and often don’t appear until late summer. These are birds that presumably nested farther west and north, then moved east to re-nest a second time.

My personal favorite of this stub-tailed crowd is the marsh wren. It is well-named, being tightly tied to lushly vegetated marshes. Like other wrens, it is often first detected by the male’s conspicuous song. A short squeaky series of notes, the song somehow has a liquid quality, as if the singer is underwater.

A few weeks ago, I was at Battelle Darby Metro Park, a crown jewel of our local park system. The Teal Trail bisects an incredible wetland restoration project: marshes, open water and moist to dry prairie. This area always produces interesting animal sightings, birds especially. The lure on this day was two Nelson’s sparrows, a rare migrant.

As I skirted along dense cattail stands, I occasionally heard the harsh fussy scold notes of marsh wrens. They nest here, but by now the locals could be augmented by migrants. Wrens in general are not loathe to voice their dissatisfaction, and I was probably the target of their scolding.

Shortly after settling in to a good hiding hole adjacent to cattails to watch the parade of sparrows ― Savannah, song, swamp, and the targeted Nelson’s ― I saw movement among the cattails accompanied by soft chittered notes. A marsh wren! The bird could not help itself, and curious about the human interloper it moved along the edge of the dense wall of cattails taking peeks at me. At one point it hit its telltale “splits” pose, which is when I took the accompanying image.

More recently, I was at a Hardin County wetland, settled into a camo-hued chair deep in wetland vegetation. I was mostly in camo, and even my big camera lens is dressed in camo. All the better to avoid spooking the waterfowl I was after. Suddenly, a movement caught my eye, and a marsh wren popped from the plants about 5 feet away. It was overcome with curiosity about the strange character in its territory and bounced to within 2 feet of me. I thought it would land on my tripod.

In the words of ornithologist Arthur Cleveland Bent, the marsh wren is: “… a shy and elusive little mite; if we make the slightest motion while watching his antics, he vanishes instantly into the depths of his reedy jungle.” I finally made a motion, and the little wren melted back into vegetation.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

This innocuous looking field is the most famous place in aviation history. It was here that two famous brothers from Dayton, Orville and Wilbur Wright, learned to fly. Sure, their first powered flights took place at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903, but the following year the brothers returned to Dayton, Ohio, and fine-tuned their flying machines on this very field.

Adjacent to the flying field is famous Huffman Prairie, and it, like the Wright Brothers' airfield, is part of the massive Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The base houses some of the most sophisticated aircraft in the world. Incredible how far aviation has come in just over a century.

But I was not here to study the history of aircraft. I had not been to the 100-acre Huffman Prairie in a long time, and had been hearing all about how great it looked this year. So, a few Sundays back I headed to Dayton and met up with Grace Cochran of Five Rivers MetroParks, which serves the Dayton area. She was willing to give me a tour of the prairie, which her park district has a big hand in managing along with the air force base and the Ohio Chapter of the Nature Conservancy. Later, we were joined by Dave Nolin, the park district's Conservation Director and a longtime friend. It was a great trip, and we ended up spending many hours exploring the prairie.

Rich dark soil - REAL prairie soil! - is the bedrock of the prairie, and much of the general area. Indeed, the Wright Brothers' airfield was a wet fen back in Orville and Wilbur's day, and they often lamented the soggy quagmire when it was at its wettest.

The reports were true - the prairie looked spectacular. Much more diverse and forb-filled than I remembered from previous visits. Everyone involved in its management deserves major kudos.

In this shot, Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, and Big Bluestem, Andropogon gerardii, dominate but plenty of other botanical diversity is visible in the scene.


Had I only been there three weeks prior! That's when Dave made the stunning image above. Remember that for next year - if you wish to visit Huffman Prairie, angle for the tail end of July or the first week in August.

Purple Coneflower is one of the most conspicuous prairie flowers, and it attracts legions of pollinating insects.

We were routinely sidetracked by interesting insects, such as this Delicate Cycnia moth caterpillar, Cycnia tenera. It is a dogbane specialist, and dogbane is closely related to milkweed (which are now considered part of the dogbane family, Apocynaceae). This photo tells a few stories. We can see the toxic white latex seeping from a leaf scar. Relatively few caterpillars can ingest that stuff, but the cycnia has cracked dogbane's chemical code. The fuzzy grayish-brown caterpillar looks nice and fresh. That's because it just molted into its final instar, or growth stage. The cast-off skin of its last stage is to the left. Most caterpillars go through five instars before reaching the final stage. Next stop: Cocoon.


We were pleased to find this beautiful specimen of a Fork-tailed Bush Katydid, Scudderia furcata.The larger katydids are often tame and confiding, and easy to coax onto one's finger. They are attracted to salts, and will rasp off the outer epidermal layer of your skin, as Grace is finding out in this photo. It isn't painful; just a funny nibbling sensation. Note the animal's ears - those dark oval dimples just below the knees on the forelegs.

This was a nice find, indeed, although the backdrop left something to be desired. It is an Orange-spotted Pyrausta, Pyrausta orphisalis, savoring the delights of coyote scat. These colorful day-flying moths resemble small butterflies.

Almost as soon as we entered the prairie, birds grabbed our attention. Squadrons of Bobolinks coursed over the meadow, issuing their softly melodic pink calls. We were constantly serenaded by electric blue Indigo Buntings, incessant motormouths that they are: Fire fire, where where, here here, see see, put it out put it out! The harsh tshacks! of Common Yellowthroats were hurled our way from thickets, the rotund warblers infuriated at our tresspass. I was surprised and pleased to hear a Blue Grosbeak, quite the rarity in this region, singing its rich finchlike song. We later spotted the bird perched atop a sign.

But perhaps best of all, avian-wise, were the Sedge Wrens. As we penetrated deeper into the prairie, we began to hear the males' staccato chatter, which suggests a poorly running sewing machine. These are secretive rather mousey birds prone to foraging, and even singing, in dense cover. Eventually we spotted one as it flew from perch to perch.

After a while, we were rewarded with excellent looks, and in all detected five singing males. Sedge Wrens often form loose colonies, and if one is found, more will likely be present. In Ohio, they are rare and local breeders, and always a treat to encounter. In our area, at least, the name is a bit of a misnomer. Sedge Wrens most often occur in grasslands - not sedge-filled wetlands - from my experience. The scientific name is Cistothorus platensis, and the genus name roughly translates to "shrub leaper". Where I find them every spring in northern Michigan, that name is apropos - they are often in sedge meadows laced with alder thickets.

In Ohio, Sedge Wrens often don't appear on territory until mid-July or even early August. It is thought that these are birds that already bred at more northerly latitudes, or in the prairie states and provinces to the west. Following that, the wrens move south and east, and nest again in entirely new locales, both in terms of habitat and geography.

Thanks again to Grace and Dave for the tour, and an excellent day in one of Ohio's best prairies.