Some conversations here recently, about this unexpected flight of
long-tailed ducks, or unprecedented numbers of certain gulls at inland
reservoirs, may involve important new trends, or maybe just blips on the
chart. How can we tell which? One way is to look at history.
        Back in 1910, Ohio's bird populations were very different from
today's. With only ~3% of the original forests remaining, pileated
woodpeckers were pretty much extirpated, and wild turkeys seemed gone
for good. Most of the forested areas and prairies had been eradicated in
favor of agriculture, but farms of the day were not nearly as sterile
and uniform as today; in pastures in 3/4 of Ohio's counties upland
sandpipers nested, and orchards and uncut dead trees helped make the
red-headed our most common woodpecker. In farm outbuildings barn and
cliff or "eave" swallows were almost universally found, and the barn owl
was to become the state's second-most common owl. Prairie-chickens were
still hunted here, probably even a few Eskimo curlews.
        Birds were not protected, and all could legally be killed, then bought
and sold for food (meadowlarks, for example, were relished for potpies),
for their feathers, or for "sport."  State wildlife officials encouraged
the shooting of all hawks, falcons, and owls, passing out free boxes of
shotgun shells for the purpose. Duck bag limits had to wait a few years.
Bald eagles nested only in a few spots along Lake Erie.
        Ring-billed gulls were extremely rare--some eminent ornithologists had
never seen one here--and in Sandusky children were enlisted to feed
scraps to herring gulls to help them survive the winter. Common terns
nested along the Lake shore by the thousands, and black terns in every
healthy marsh. Piping plovers still nested on remote beaches.
        The climate was less moderate a century ago. Some birds--Carolina
chickadees, mockingbirds, barn owls, black vultures, white-eyed vireos,
Carolina wrens, etc.--were largely restricted to the southern counties.
Tufted titmice and northern cardinals were much less common in the
north. Snowy owls were more often enough found down to the Ohio River in
winter, and northern harriers nested in nearly all the northern
counties, and in 51 of the state's 88 still in 1935.
        The last remnants of the great Black Swamp were being eradicated, and
draining via tiling and ditching and diversion was drying out other
wetlands, which was leading to local extirpations of rails, gallinules,
soras, coots, marsh wrens, etc. The great local migrations of tundra
swans took place in the spring, not the fall, and trumpeter and mute
swans were unknown. Canada geese did not breed in Ohio. Bobwhites could
be found in neighborhoods of large cities. Our last Ohio barolina
parakeets and passenger pigeons had died within the previous decade.
Bluebirds nested in the wild, but purple martins and chimney swifts and
cliff swallows had become largely dependent on human structures. House
sparrows were more abundant than today, but starlings and house finches
were unknown.
        Is anyone willing to make some guesses as to what our birdlife will
look like in 2110?
Bill Whan
Columbus






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