While many North American bird species are in decline, few groups are in as steep a drop as the grassland species. Further reading on the topic can help provide focus on the scary details and the steps being taken to help.
Grassland Birds in Ohio
By Tim Colborn, Western Cuyahoga Audubon Society While many North American bird species are in decline, few groups are in as steep a drop as the grassland species. Further reading on the topic can help provide focus on the scary details and the steps being taken to help.
There are plenty of states throughout our great nation that historically included hundreds of thousands of acres of natural, prairie grasslands. Ohio was not one of them. Heavily forested when expansion of European settlers began, much of those woodlands were felled over time to make way for farming to feed families and communities. That “opening” of farmlands created prairie-like habitats that helped to attract and increase grassland birds. But, over time, farming practices increased their efficiency (including heavy use of pesticides and equipment that left little edge cover along borders and fence rows) that led to reductions in nesting and wintering capability.
Ohio has many places a birder may go to observe the species that winter, migrate through or breed in the state. Today, there are several counties in the state with good grassland habitat. But one of the biggest assists to grassland birds has been the conversion of former coal company strip mine land to grassland habitat, primarily in central Ohio. These reclamations have been very popular with birds and birders alike and provide large swaths of land that harbor nesting species in numbers much greater than smaller pockets of habitat elsewhere. A great example is The Wilds property in Muskingum County. For the intrepid birder willing to travel from destinations near the state borders, The Wilds can provide an exciting day (or more) of grassland birding in late May, June and even into July and August. Several species can be reliably found (though sometimes heard rather than seen) along several roads adjacent to The Wilds including Henslow’s Sparrow, Grasshopper Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, Eastern Meadowlark and Bobolink. They all breed in the area allowing birders to find them well past migration. In winter, this area can also produce observations of both Northern Harriers and Short-eared Owls. Several good grassland spaces exist elsewhere in the state – here is a selected list of just a few:
Closer to northeast Ohio, there are several places where grassland birds may be found, generally in smaller numbers but fairly reliably. Here are a handful:
View: Grassland Birds of Ohio by Tim Colborn (PDF)![]()
Tim Colborn, Author. Tim Colborn’s love of the outdoors began at an early age. He spent his summers as a boy in the Eastern Townships of Quebec hiking, swimming and fishing with his brothers but it wasn’t until a quiet encounter with a Great Blue Heron on his honeymoon that his interest in birds and birding was sparked. In the following 25-30 years, he has birded in more than 35-40 states around the country as well as in Costa Rica, Ecuador and Ireland. Much of Tim’s birding has centered in New England and the Midwest where he has led field trips, participated in Breeding Bird Surveys and Christmas Counts and given presentations to bird clubs and school children. Tim is proud to be a longtime Western Cuyahoga Audubon member (and former Board Member). He is also the current President of the Ohio Ornithological Society and a past Vice President of the Hudson-Mohawk Bird Club in upstate New York.
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