FEBRUARY 06, 2022 - OTTAWA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE MONTHLY CENSUS. ROUTES: East and West sides (except where drifting snow made it inaccessible) and Western Prairies in the morning; Auto Tour area in the afternoon, except where snowdrifts turned us back. TIME: 7:45am - 12:00pm; 1:00pm - 4:10pm TEMP.: 17F ~ 31F COND.: Cold and sunny with blue skies; winds south and steady all day at 5-15mph; snow cover about 4-inches to 6-inches, except where drifted; all impoundments, canals, and ditches frozen; very little open water - one open lead at Metzger Marsh, one open lead at the Crane Creek mudflats, and a large open lead in Lake Erie, but at least a half-mile (or more?) out. OBS. EAST: Jim Koppin, Jim Reyda, Al & Betty Schlecht. OBS. WEST: Mary Appold (sic?), Katie Clink, Donna Kuhn, George Novosel, Chris Pierce. OBS. WEST PRAIRIES: Douglas W. Vogus. OBS. AFTERNOON: Jim Koppin, Jim Reyda, Douglas W. Vogus. I. MAMMALS: 8 SPECIES. 1. Eastern Cottontail - 5 2. Eastern Fox Squirrel - 6 3. Meadow Vole - 1 4. Common Muskrat - 1 5. Coyote - 2 (one seen on Lake Erie & one heard howling in field south of Butternut Woods - Tied Census High from 03/2008, 01/2018, 02/2018 & 02/2020) 6. Common Raccoon - 1 7. Northern River Otter - 1 (First February Record on Census & Tied Census High from 11/2010) 8. White-tailed Deer - 11 (does) II. BIRDS: 56 SPECIES, 3,270 TOTAL BIRDS. 1. Canada Goose - 227 2. Mute Swan - 2 3. Trumpeter Swan - 39 4. Tundra Swan - 1,540 5. Canvasback - 1 6. Redhead - 60 7. Lesser Scaup - 3 8. Common Goldeneye - 1 9. Common Merganser - 82 10. Mourning Dove - 34 11. Sandhill Crane - 30 12. Ring-billed Gull - 68 13. Herring Gull - 6 14. Great Blue Heron - 21 (plus one dead on the canal ice being scavenged by a Red-tailed Hawk) 15. Northern Harrier - 5 16. Sharp-shinned Hawk - 1 17. Cooper's Hawk - 1 18. Bald Eagle - 14 (6 adult,8 immature) 19. Red-tailed Hawk - 6 20. Rough-legged Hawk - 1 (dark morph) (same bird since December?) 21. Great Horned Owl - 3 (one nesting on abandoned eagle nest) 22. Long-eared Owl - 1 23. Red-headed Woodpecker - 1 (adult in Butternut Woods) 24. Red-bellied Woodpecker - 6 25. Downy Woodpecker - 11 26. Hairy Woodpecker - 2 27. Northern Flicker - 1 28. American Kestrel - 4 29. Northern Shrike - 1 30. Blue Jay - 22 31. American Crow - 2 32. Horned Lark - 20 33. Black-capped Chickadee - 4 34. Tufted Titmouse - 1 35. White-breasted Nuthatch - 4 36. Brown Creeper - 1 37. Winter Wren - 2 38. Carolina Wren - 2 39. American Robin - 9 40. European Starling - 42 41. House Sparrow - 41 42. Evening Grosbeak - 1 (solo fly-over headed north over Grimm Prairie - Third February Record on Census) 43. House Finch - 6 44. American Goldfinch - 9 45. American Tree Sparrow - 217 46. Dark-eyed Junco - 13 47. White-throated Sparrow - 1 48. Savannah Sparrow - 3 (plus one dead - two together along Krause Rd., one under the feeder at the house on corner of Krause Rd. & Stange Rd.; one dead at the observation deck on Stange Rd.) 49. Song Sparrow - 22 50. Swamp Sparrow - 6 51. Eastern Meadowlark - 1 52. Red-winged Blackbird - 339 53. Brown-headed Cowbird - 16 54. Rusty Blackbird - 56 55. Common Grackle - 229 56. Northern Cardinal - 29 Compiler: Douglas W. Vogus - Akron, Ohio. ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]