The Rock Pigeons at Rock House...

Back in October, we took a trip to Hocking Hills State Park in southeast Ohio. The park is only two hours from Cincinnati and offers wonderful hiking and spectacular scenery. Rock House is one of the caves in the park. Located halfway up a 150-foot wall of blackhand sandstone, the true cave has a 25-foot high ceiling, is about 30 feet wide, and is 200 feet long...but even better, it is home to a beautiful flock of Rock Pigeons....

A Rock House Rock Pigeon!

Rock Pigeons are city birds, right? So the last thing I expected to see when I stepped into the long dark tunnel deep in the woods was pigeons...but I shouldn't have been surprised. Originally, before humans came along and built cities, Rock Pigeons lived in crevices and caves on coastal rock walls and cliffs in Europe, North Africa and parts of Asia. European colonists brought them to North America in the 1600s. Their name reflects their native habitat, so it was especially fun to find them living in the wild!

The trail leading to the Rock House is beautiful. 

Inside Rock House looking out. The pigeons would fly in and out through this opening in the cave. Birds roosted in the many crevices and cracks on the wall outside the cave as well as those inside. 

The birds would fly in and out of the cave, and I loved listening to their cooing and the constant flutter of their wings as they flew from roosting spot to roosting spot.

This fellow is above me on a ledge inside the cave. If I would look to my right, I would see out of the opening in the photo above. Eventually this pigeon flew outside while another flew back in.

Love those pink feet!

This small rectangular reservoir was carved into the sandstone by Native Americans. They would use it to collect water. Now the pigeons used it for drinking and bathing (see the video at the end of the post). 

A view out of the opening opposite the back cave wall where the birds were. This opening looks a little like a bird... 

Rock House video
Click here to watch the "Naturally Ohio: Rock House" video. It was made by the Ohio Public Broadcasting Station, and Pat Quackenbush, an ODNR Naturalist, is the narrator. Pat takes you on a tour of the trail and explains the flora, fauna and history of the Rock House. It's only 20 minutes, and it's really good!

Can pigeons diagnose cancer?
Click here for the article "Can Pigeons Really Diagnose Cancer? A new study says yes, but you're not likely to see them in lab coats anytime soon," written by Hannah Waters on the Audubon web site to learn about pigeons' ability to identify and sort visual patterns, including cancer cell patterns and healthy cell patterns. It can recognize all 26 letters in the alphabet, as well as different faces in photos.

The domestication of the Rock Pigeon
Click here to read about the earliest encounters of man with the Rock Pigeon. The first art appears in Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets dating back over 5000 years ago, but it's more likely the pigeon was domesticated by Neolithic man over 10,0000 years ago in the area near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers when humans started cultivating grains. In prehistoric times, Rock Pigeons probably lived with man in caves and in the crevices on the surrounding rock walls and cliffs.

A unique way of drinking water
Pigeons and doves drink water by using their bills like a straw, sucking water in while their bill is still immersed in the water. Most birds take a sip and toss their head back so the water flows down their throat. The following video is dark and poor quality (taken in a cave with my cell phone), but you can see the pigeon sucking up the water through its bill...

A Rock Pigeon drinking water at the Rock House from Kelly Riccetti on Vimeo.

Lincoln's Sparrow in Hocking Hills...

Rick, Matty and I, my brother, sis-in-law and my niece, and my parents all went to Hocking Hills in southeast Ohio last weekend. It was another of our fall trips. We started the tradition back when the kids were tiny little things, and we've kept it up through the years. Now the kids are juniors in college, and the tradition continues. This year we settled on Hocking Hills (an easy 2.5 hr drive) and rented an 8-bedroom "cabin" about 30 minutes away from the action of Old Man's Cave, Rock House, horseback riding, etc. I'm glad we did, because the cabin came with 30 or 40 acres to explore. It had a pond edged in cattails, scrubby fields, wet thickets, brush piles, a small stream in a small gorge, and even a few boggy areas, all of which add up to perfect territory for migrating Lincoln's Sparrows...

A beautiful fall Lincoln's Sparrow perches in a Sycamore sapling along the cattail edges of the pond.

We didn't know what the cabin would look like or what type of land would be around it, so I was really excited when we drove up the long, crunchy gravel drive and saw what was there. Basically, nothing. We were isolated from other people and cabins, which was wonderful! It was so nice to look out and see only trees and fields (my brother booked the cabin and did a great job!). In the back of my mind, I knew Lincoln's Sparrows were at the height of their fall migration through our state, and I was hoping to photograph one. Lincoln's Sparrows are shy birds, so they don't hang out where there is a lot of human activity, which made our lonely little cabin in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains a perfect location. The dashing little bird had always eluded my camera lens, so if ever I was going to be able to photograph one, this would be it.

Mr. Lincoln, you are a grand bird. The fine streaking and buff coloring sets this bird apart from other sparrows...especially song sparrows, which were all around me in the field.

I can't remember who asked...it might have been my mom, but someone wanted to know if the bird was named after President Lincoln. I didn't know, so I looked it up. It wasn't. It was named after Thomas Lincoln (1812 - 1883).  At the time, Thomas Lincoln was 21. He and 4 other young men, including Audubon's son, accompanied Audubon on the 1833 Labrador Expedition. Lincoln shot the bird for Audubon to paint for his The Birds of America book. Audubon named the bird after him, at first calling it "Tom's Finch."

Look at that jaunty little cap on his head trimmed with two chestnut stripes (lateral crown stripes), each streaked with black. That's one of the first things I look at when identifying a Lincoln's Sparrow. The black streaking on the head, and the fine dark brown and black streaks on the buff-colored chest and flanks.

A Lincoln's Sparrow in the morning light. 

Audubon's 1833 Labrador Expedition
On June 6, 1833, Audubon, his youngest son, John Woodhouse Audubon, Thomas Lincoln, William Ingalls, George Shattuck, and Joseph Coolidge (sometimes spelled Collide) set out from Eastport, Maine on the schooner "Ripley" commanded by Captain Emery. The trip was a collecting expedition with an emphasis on northern waterbirds for The Birds of America. They returned to Eastport on August 31, 1833. Click here for a map and timeline that shows the routes they took to and from Labrador. This map appears in the article, "Parts Unknown: Audubon's 1833 Labrador Expedition on the Ripley," and is on the Audubon website in "Audubon's Aviary, The Final Flight." The article contains a lot of other interesting historical information, e.g., in a letter Audubon wrote to his son Victor Gifford, we learn:

"I have chartered a schooner called the ‘Ripley,’ commanded by Captain Emery. . . . only a year old, of 106 tons, for which we pay three hundred and fifty dollars per month for the entire use of the vessel with the men. . . .”

While preparing for this expedition, Audubon suffered a stroke in March of 1833. He recovered quickly and continued with the preparations for the trip. For a personal account of the 1833 Labrador Expedition, click here for the pdf of an article from The Auk, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Jan., 1910), pp. 42-52, titled, "Audubon's Labrador Trip of 1833," by Ruthven Deane. In 1903 Deane interviewed Dr. William Ingalls, who was in his 90s and the last surviving member of the party. The article contains a letter written by Ingalls to Deane describing their trip.

Audubon's description of the Lincoln's Sparrow in Labrador
If you go to the Audubon website, you have access to all of the birds and the text from Audubon's great work of art, The Birds of America. Click here for the link. Lincoln's Sparrow is Plate 193, and the text that accompanies it is from the 1833 Labrador Expedition. I always love reading the original text. Here are a few of my favorite experts (click here for the entire text):

"We had been in Labrador nearly three weeks before this Finch was discovered. One morning while the sun was doing his best to enliven the gloomy aspect of the country, I chanced to enter one of those singular small valleys here and there to be seen. The beautiful verdure of the vegetation, the numerous flowers that grew sprinkled over the ground, the half-smothered pipings of some frogs, and the multitudes of mosquitoes and flies of various sorts, seemed to belong to a region very different from any that I had previously explored. But if the view of this favoured spot was pleasing to my eye, how much more to my ear were the sweet notes of this bird as they came thrilling on the sense, surpassing in vigour those of any American Finch with which I am acquainted, and forming a song which seemed a compound of those of the Canary and Wood-lark of Europe. I immediately shouted to my companions, who were not far distant. They came, and we all followed the songster as it flitted from one bush to another to evade our pursuit. No sooner would it alight than it renewed its song; but we found more wildness in this species than in any other inhabiting the same country, and it was with difficulty that we at last procured it. Chance placed my young companion, THOMAS LINCOLN, in a situation where he saw it alight within shot, and with his usual unerring aim, he cut short its career. On seizing it, I found it to be a species which I had not previously seen; and, supposing it to be new, I named it Tom's Finch, in honour of our friend LINCOLN, who was a great favourite among us. Three cheers were given him, when, proud of the prize, I returned to the vessel to draw it, while my son and his companions continued to search for other specimens." 

"The habits of this sweet songster resemble those of the Song Sparrow. Like it, mounted on the topmost twig of the tallest shrub or tree it can find, it chants for hours; or, diving into the thickets, it hops from branch to branch, until it reaches the ground, in search of those insects and berries from which it derives its support. It moves swiftly off when it discovers an enemy; and, if forced to take wing, flies low and rapidly to some considerable distance, jerking its tail as it proceeds, and throwing itself at the foot of the thickest bush it meets. I found it mostly near streams, and always in the small valleys, guarded from the cold winds so prevalent in the country, and which now and then nip the vegetation, and destroy many of the more delicate birds."

Our fall trips
This was a wonderful fall trip. The weather was perfect, the leaves were starting to change, and the birds were fantastic. From horseback riding, to hiking, to looking up at the Milky Way while listening to coyotes, I loved every minute with my family and want to go back...soon! There is a lot to see in Hocking Hills, and a day and a half is not enough time. Click here for highlights from a few of our earlier trips.

Black-throated Green Warblers at Magee Marsh during the Biggest Week in American Birding

I'm back home from the Biggest Week in American Birding and am already missing the warblers! I'm definitely returning next year for the event, and I'm adding a day to my stay. This year I was there Monday-Thursday, but next year I'm adding in Friday :-) I'm going to get Matty and Rick up for a few days too. Spending a week birding and photographing warblers at Magee is heaven. I loved it...

A Black-throated Green Warbler (Dendroica virens) clings to a vine looking for something to eat along the boardwalk at Magee Marsh. He was singing up a storm, and all eyes were on him!

It's easy to see where he gets the "Black-throated" part of his name. I don't think that throat could get any blacker! 

...but where does the "Green" part of his name fit in? From below he looks black, white and yellow!

You have to look on top to catch sight of the green. If you look closely, you'll see the back of his head and shoulders are an olive green color. Now the name Black-throated Green Warbler makes sense! 

Black-throated Green Warblers were everywhere along the boardwalk, and they were very vocal. I enjoyed listening to their song. Their constant singing made it easier to find them (just like with the Yellow Warblers)!

This little fellow was just passing through the Black Swamp at Magee Marsh, which provides critical habitat for migrating neotropical songbirds. He was fueling up for his long trip over Lake Erie to reach his nesting grounds further north, but even though this bird prefers cooler northern temps, you can find Black-throated Green Warblers nesting in Ohio. You just have to head to the deep gorges found within the Hocking Hills region in southeastern Ohio. In 2009 we were hiking the Old Man's Cave trail in Hocking Hills in the heat of summer when we heard this bird's call. It took a while to focus in on the bird, but eventually we found him. That's when I really started appreciating the microclimates of the deep dolomite gorges carved out by meltwater from the retreating Wisconsinan glacier 10,000-15,000 years ago. The cooler temperatures of the shaded gorges allow hemlock trees (boreal relics from seeds swept down and deposited by the glacier) to thrive and creates habitat for species that prefer the cooler northern coniferous woodlands. Within a short time of seeing the Black-throated Green Warbler, we heard and saw a Hermit Thrush--another bird that normally nests much farther north. According to the breeding bird atlas map in Peterjohn's "The Birds of Ohio," small breeding populations of Black-throated Green Warblers also nest in northeastern Ohio east of Cleveland.

For migration predictions and info on the birds being seen on the boardwalk, click here for Kenn Kaufman's Crane Creek - Magee Birding blog (covers the Lake Erie Shores and Islands Region of northwest Ohio). Click here for a nice resource on Magee Marsh.

Buy a piece of history...and support the Ohio State Parks!

Antique Virginia slate roof tiles are for sale at Hocking Hills State Park and Shawnee State Park!

While walking deep in the hollows of Hocking Hills State Park, a park employee stumbled across a large stack of abandoned Virginia slate roof tiles. The tiles, apparently intended for the roof of a large barn, were never used and lay undetected in the woods for over a hundred years! Park officials have rescued hundreds of them with the idea of offering these “pieces of history” to the public to help raise money for the parks.

These historic artifacts are ideal for painters and crafters. Artists literally have a blank slate to work with! Painted slate roof tiles can be hung inside for a rustic look or outside in gardens or on a porch. Welcome signs, house address markers, garden signs, flowers, birds, or woodland scenes all look beautiful on these historic tiles. It’s getting harder and harder to find antique slate roof tiles. Don’t pass up this opportunity to own a piece of history and help out the Ohio State Parks!

...this is a broken slate roof tile I used this summer during a free workshop at Shawnee State Park to demonstrate how to paint birds on slate and rocks. The tiles for sale are huge...more than twice this size, but you can see the lovely patina they've acquired over the past 100 years. Also included with the tiles are eight bird templates adapted from a few of my paintings. You can use the templates to get you started, or create your own designs. You'll find these two Hooded Warblers in the pack, as well as an Eastern Bluebird, an American Goldfinch on a sunflower, male and female Northern Cardinals, a Carolina Chickadee, and an American Bald Eagle.

Tiles are $24.99 and are for sale at:

Shawnee State Park and at the camping store

Hocking Hills State Park at the gift shop

Buy a piece of history...

and support the Ohio State Parks!

Northern Parulas, Usnea lichens, and the Little Miami River

Every spring Rick and I listen for the return of the Northern Parulas. In 2007 we were lucky because a male took up temporary residence in our backyard for two weeks singing loudly from dawn to dusk, but usually we find them singing in the tall Sycamore trees all along the Little Miami River.

Painting 150. Northern Parula in Spring

(Watercolor, Arches Cold Pressed 140 lb paper)

Pencil sketch of a Northern Parula

(study for painting 151)

We’re fortunate to have nesting Parulas in our area at all, because not much of Ohio is in their breeding range. In the deep south, Northern Parulas nest in trees dripping with Spanish moss, using the moss for nest construction, and in the north, they choose boreal woodlands with trees covered in Usnea lichen (which, with the nickname of Old Man’s Beard or beard lichen looks a lot like Spanish moss...), but Ohio seems to be a no-man’s land caught between the two…except for a few locations in southern and central Ohio, including our Little Miami River corridor! Since I see and hear Northern Parulas every spring and summer near the Powder Factory along the Little Miami River and a little further up the river at Fort Ancient, I didn’t know they were rare nesters in Ohio. They were common to me, but earlier this spring I started reading about them in “Birds of Ohio,” by Jim McCormac, “The Birds of Ohio,” by Bruce Peterjohn, and “Peterson Field Guides, Warblers,” by Jon Dunn/Kimball Garret, and they all said the same thing--nesting Northern Parulas in Ohio "prefer" boreal woodlands with white cedars and hemlocks:

“Breeders are largely confined to southern Ohio and are usually found in riparian woods with peak numbers occurring in hemlock gorges.” (McCormac, 251)

“As summer residents, Northern Parulas were formerly restricted to hemlock forests along the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau.” (Peterjohn, 422)

“In the northern portion of the breeding range it is generally associated with rather moist boreal forests including spruce, hemlock, balsam fir, white cedar, tamarack, an various hardwoods; Usnea lichen abounds in these habitats.” (Dunn/Garret, 197)

These descriptions definitely cover the areas in Hocking Hills where boreal relics live in the microclimates of the deep gorges, and therefore the largest concentrations of nesting Northern Parulas occur (click here for a past post describing Hocking Hills region and parts of the Unglaciated Allegheny Plateau)…but in the Cincinnati area we don’t have a lot of white cedar and hemlock forests--unless you look at certain spots along the Little Miami River. In these areas relic boreal species still exist along its banks, hillsides, and gorges—all left behind from the mile-high Wisconsinan continental glacier 10,000 years ago (click here for a previous post on how Clifton Gorge was formed and the white cedars and hemlocks that live there). These gorges, carved out by a glacial meltwater river, contain cooler microclimates that mimic the boreal north and allow the northern species to thrive. When you travel to the headwaters of the Little Miami near Clifton Gorge, you find stands of white cedars and hemlocks, but further down the river by me, huge Sycamore trees are king, so why are the Northern Parulas nesting here? The same books held the answer:

“Breeders are largely confined to southern Ohio and are usually found in riparian woods...” (McCormac, 251) ("Riparian" woods are woodlands along the banks of a stream or river, which would include the mature Sycamore trees along the Little Miami River.)

“Since the late 1950s, summering Parulas have expanded into mature sycamore-oak riparian woodlands in southwestern Ohio. The first Cincinnati area nest was discovered in 1958. In subsequent years, they spread throughout southwestern Ohio north to Preble, Montgomery, Clinton, and western Ross Counties. They have become uncommon to rare in most of these counties, with most reports of four or fewer daily, although as many as 11 males were counted along the Little Miami River in Warren County.” (Peterjohn, 423)

“…in the upper Ohio River Valley, they may occur locally in sycamore and oak woodlands.” (Dunn/Garret, 197)

…so…yeah! for the Little Miami River, Usnea lichens and our little population of “common” Northern Parulas! The connection between Usnea lichens and Northern Parulas is important. I even found it mentioned in my huge book on lichens, “Lichens of North American,” by Irwin Brodo, Sylvia Sharnoff, and Steven Sharnoff, where they report the Usnea species is important as nesting material for Northern Parulas. The Little Miami River is a healthy river free of pollution, so lichen populations are healthy and large. I guess our little Northern Parulas have found what they need in the mature trees along its corridor.

Painting 151. Field sketches of a Northern Parula

...painted near the Powder Factory along the Little Miami River, I put the paint down quickly using a limited palette and a water brush. I was going for an impression or "feel" of the bird, so I didn't bother with pencil sketches, detail, or accuracy.

These photos are from April 29, 2011 along the Little Miami river along the Fort Ancient hillside entrance. Rick and I were looking at Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense) growing along the path, and he was singing like crazy overhead. The photos are poor, but they show a few of the Northern Parula's characteristics.

Northern Parulas are very small warblers and can crawl to the tips of branches to glean insects like a chickadee or kinglet. (Dunn/Garret, 196)

...a peak at that beautiful bright yellow chest.

...even in the dark shadows the white arches above and below the eyes are visible.

...and the two white wing bars are just as visible.

For a link to the U.S. Geological Survey map of the breeding range of the Northern Parula, click here and here.

For a link to a page on Usnea lichens, click here.

Road Trip...to Athens, Ohio and Hocking Hills!

Rick, Matty and I headed up to Athens, Ohio yesterday. Matty is at a tennis camp at Ohio University all week, and while he's hitting tennis balls I'm going to visit the parks, but before I get to that...guess who I had dinner with last night? Heather of the Hills! Heather and her husband, Dave, invited me to their beautiful home for a yummy, yummy dinner. Heather made veggie lasagna with zucchini from her garden. Delicious! We talked and talked and had a great time. Heather is every bit as gracious in real life as she is on her blog, and Dave is incredibly nice too. I also got to meet her dogs, Jupiter and Emmet. Very cute and sweet, they spent most of their time sleeping...just like they do on her blog! 

Heather and me standing next to her garden. Dave must have 

said something funny, because I'm laughing. I can't remember...

The wooded drive leading up to Heather and Dave's house. They 

are nestled in thick woods...truly a bird lover's paradise. I don't 

think I could get any work done if I lived there because I would 

be tromping through the woods looking for birds...all the time! 

Tomorrow Heather and I are heading up to Old Man's Cave in Hocking Hills. Our target species...a Cerulean Warbler and a Hooded Warbler! Wish us luck...