GMAS Newsletter Spring 2016 • Serving Ashland, Richland, Wayne & Holmes Counties

In this issue: GMAS Calendar

Page 2

Bird-a-thon raises funds for June Bobolinks Fest Page 3

Audubon at Home Pages 4 & 5

Winter Juncos – taking off to the great white north

I’ve always fancied myself a “reverse snowbird.” By that I mean someone who, given the opportunity, would summer in Canada and winter in the northern U.S. It seems that the dark-eyed junco has beaten me to it. I’ve always wondered where the juncos that flock to my feeders every winter go when spring rolls around. I did some quick research, which confirmed what I’d heard: Juncos from our region hightail it for Canada. However, there are some in eastern and western parts of the U.S. that stay year-round. It’s been said that Midwest juncos are better predictors of spring than groundhogs, the Old Farmer’s Almanac and the Cleveland Indians being mathematically eliminated from winning the Central Division of the American League. In addition to enjoying the cooler Canadian summers, migrating juncos breed while they’re up there. When it comes to breeding rituals, the males have taken a cue from Red Green, who often said, “If the women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.” As part of their mating dance, a male junco will pick up a piece of nesting material and wave it about. However, unlike Red Green, they are not known for using duct tape for nest building.

–Irv Oslin, Newsletter Editor

Carolina parakeet by John J. Audubon

An about-face on Facebook Our Facebook presence has taken flight thanks to Jan Kennedy’s regular postings of tidbits of in- formation on phenomena and current events in the natural world. That includes a recent article on the importance of saving bird species such as the now extinct Carolina parkeet depicted in this illustration. Previously, the Greater Mohican Audubon Face-book page wasn’t drawing much traffic. But, after Kennedy started posting items on a regular basis, our numbers took off. We started getting more page views, likes and comments than ever before. Far more. Our Facebook postings automatically post to our website home page, so that gets refreshed as well. If you haven’t done so yet, check us out on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/gmasohio/.

Updated listings are available on our website at http://gmasohio.org/events/.

• March 12, Sat. 7 a.m. – 4:45 p.m. — Shreve Spring Migration Sensation Shreve Elementary School, 598 N. Market St., http://www.happypages.com/migration/

• March 12, Sat. 9-11 a.m. — Bird walk at Wright Marsh During Shreve Spring Migration Sensation.

• March 19, Sat. 7 p.m. — Woodcock walk at Byers Woods In conjunction with the Ashland County Park District. County Road 1754, four miles south of Ashland off State Route 60.

• March 26, Sat. 9-11 a.m. — Bird walk at Byers Woods In conjunction with the Ashland County Park District. County Road 1754, four miles south of Ashland off State Route 60. Meet in the parking lot.

• April 9, Sat. 9-11 a.m. — Bird walk at Secrest Arboretum 1630 Madison Ave., Wooster. Meet at visitors pavilion.

• April 22-24, Fri. – Sun. — Mohican Wildlife Weekend Various locations in our area. Info available at http://www.mohicanwildlifeweekend.com/.

• April 23, Sat. 9-11 a.m. — Bird walk at Byers Woods In conjunction with the Ashland County Park District. County Road 1754, four miles south of Ashland off State Route 60. Meet in the parking lot.

• May 14, Sat. 9 a.m. — Bird walk at Mohican State Park Meet at Campground A off State Route 3 south of Loudonville. Includes an all-day bird-a-thon. See article on page 3 for details.

• May 28, Sat. 9-11 a.m. — Bird walk at Byers Woods In conjunction with the Ashland County Park District. County Road 1754, four miles south of Ashland off State Route 60. Meet in the parking lot.

• June 25, 2016, Sat. 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. — Bobolinks Fest at Byers Woods Mark this date on your calendars now!

Greater Mohican Audubon Spring Calendar

GMAS Spring 2016 Page 3

Gary Cowell, left, will lead a bird-a-thon after the May 14 bird walk at Mohican State Park. All are welcome to join him for all or part of it. And all are more than welcome to donate!

May 14 Bird-a-thon helps give wing to Bobolinks Fest It’s bird watching for a cause. Greater Mohican Audubon VP Gary Cowell will once again lead an all-day bird-a-thon at Mohican State Park and other locations. The bird-a-thon begins after the regular 9 -11 a.m. bird walk. The starting point will be the main campground parking lot off State Route 3 south of Loudonville. Cowell has pledged 50 cents per species tallied with all proceeds going to support our Bobolinks and Butterfly Festival at Byers Woods. Anyone is welcome to make a pledge in any amount to help the cause. Those pledging need not be present. However, extra eyes and ears can be helpful. Please contact Cowell in advance to make your pledges at gcowelljr@yahoo.com. The 10th annual Bobolinks Festival will be 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, June 25, at Byers Woods. (See newsletter calendar and events page on our website for details.)

The Greater Mohican Audubon Newsletter is a quarterly publication ..of the Greater Mohican Audubon Society, which serves Richland, Ashland, Wayne and Holmes counties. P.O Box 907, Ashland, OH 44805 • Online edition: http://gmasohio.org/ Newsletter Editor – Irv Oslin: irvoslin@gmail.com Members receive electronic PDF copies via email or, if requested, hard copy via U.S. Postal Service. Copies available to others on request.

The Greater Mohican Audubon Society is dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of birds and other wildlife through environmental education and the conservation and restoration of habitat.

— 10 YEARS! —

Plan to attend or participate in the 10th annual Bobolinks and Butterfly Festival at Byers Woods.

This event, presented in conjunction with the Ashland County Park District, helps support the maintenance of Byers Woods bobolink habitat and spreads the word about the importance of a species in decline. It also provides an educational and enjoyable experience for families and people of all ages.

It was a chilly fall day. I was hiking in a wooded Mohican area with a friend. My knee socks were sagging around my ankles and my legs were cold, so I started to pull up my socks. Whoa, what is that? In the process of pulling up my socks I noticed a tick making haste up my beige pants. It was a small never-before-seen-by-me type of tick. My hiking buddy and I immediately knew it was a black- legged or deer tick (Ixodes scapularis). The first clue was that it was out patrolling in the cold weather. Blacklegged ticks can be out and about all winter even if there is snow on the ground. They prefer the ground to not be frozen though. The second clue was its size, color, including of course its black legs. It turned out that this specimen was a female. It was black around its head area and the rear was brown. We discovered six more ticks on my friend’s dog, and they appeared to be entirely black and the size of sesame seeds. Just imagine black sesame seeds with eight legs. These were the males. The female was a little larger than the male and sported two distinct colors. Deer ticks have now been found in 33 of Ohio’s 88 counties. We can definitely now count the Mohican area in Ashland County, as these Lyme disease-carrying ticks continue their march across the U.S. There are more than 300,000 new cases of Lyme disease every year in the U.S. This number has tripled since 1996. Lyme disease has been found on every continent except for Antarctica. Different Ixodes species spread the disease in Europe and the western U.S. During my childhood, the greatest threat from ticks was Rocky Mountain spotted fever. It has been supplanted by Lyme disease, an insidious illness that is spread by blacklegged ticks. It is often mis-diagnosed, and the repercussions of not treating Lyme disease can continue for a lifetime. Amy Tan’s essay about her experience with Lyme disease is what truly brought home its threat and potential severity to one’s health and well-being. “I wish I knew 10 years ago all of the things I’ve just mentioned. If I had, I might have avoided getting bitten. I would not have let a treatable disease turn into a permanent, disabling, and life-changing one.” (http://www.humanthology.com/lyme-disease/2014/9/15/slyme-disease-how-a-speck-changed-my-life-forever)

(Continued on next page)

GMAS Spring 2016 Page 4

Audubon at Home

How not to be a tick magnet

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/ticks/article_em.htm

GMAS Spring 2016 Page 5

I’ve been most frightened of Lyme disease, but the Lyme Disease Association lists 17 diseases you can get in the U.S. from tick bites, if the tick happens to be carrying the right pathogens. For example, the blacklegged tick can spread Anaplasmosis/Erlichiosis. Babesiosis, Bartonella, Borrelia miyamotoi, Lyme disease, Tick paralysis, and Powassan encephalitis. One bite can transmit several diseases, http://www.lymediseaseassociation.org/. Diseases are also carried by dog ticks (Dermacentor variabilis) and lone star ticks (Amblyomma americanum), both of which are found in Ohio. And it’s not just humans that are affected; a Scioto County friend’s dog had Erlichiosis, most likely from a lone star tick bite. Okay, back to the unnerving hike. What to do? Give up hiking in Mohican? Give up being outdoors altogether? Certainly not — there is just too much to see and discover in wild Ohio. One can, however, look for gear that prevents ticks from setting up residence on one’s person. Lucky for us, manufacturers have answered our distress calls and there are products that will arm us against these creepy crawly carriers of a varied array of diseases. Here are some of the solutions for dealing with the threat of ticks: • Double-sided duct tape — tape around the thigh area of your pants, at staggered heights so your legs won’t stick together! • Permethrin — for clothes and shoes only, do not spray on skin. Follow the directions carefully; it’s toxic to fish and cats. • DEET (for skin), picaridin, or lemon eucalyptus oil. • Wear light-colored long pants and tuck them into socks. Wear long-sleeved light-colored shirts. If possible, wear insect-repellent clothing. Clothing treated with permethrin is more effective than sprayed clothing. For a nominal fee, you can have garments treated with Insect Guard, http://www.insectshield.com/IS_Your_Own_Clothes/default.aspx. • Long hair should be covered or tied up. • Check yourself and your clothing a few times for ticks after you’ve been in grassy, brushy, or wooded areas that are likely to have ticks. • Check your pets for ticks before they come into the house. I purchased a pair of Ex Officio pants with Insect Shield, Outdoor Research permethrin-treated gaiters, and a spray bottle of Sawyer Permethrin Insect Repellent. A friend gave me a Columbia Insect Blocker bandana. The clothes also will help ward off other pesky biting insects such as deerflies and mosquitoes. If you have the misfortune of providing a blood meal for a tick, this is the best advice for removing the parasite: “The easiest and safest way to remove a tick is with pointy tweezers. Think of a tick as a little germ-filled balloon. Squeeze it too hard on its back end, and all the germs get pushed to the front end, which by the way, is attached to you by the tick's straw-like mouthpart. Using really pointy tweezers, it's possible to grab even the poppy-seed sized nymphs right down next to the skin. The next step is to simply pull the tick out like a splinter. Don't worry if the mouthpart stays in your skin as long as you've got the rest of the tick by its head. “ (This tip is #3 on a comprehensive list published by the University of Rhode Island. http://www.tickencounter.org/prevention/top_ten_things_list). “And if you are bitten by a tick, save it and send it to be tested. (You can take a tick to your local health department.) Some say you don’t have worry unless the tick was attached for over 24 or 48 hours. But how do you know when the tick first attached itself to you? And why is it that my tick caused me to be sick less than 24 hours later? If you don’t see a bull’s eye around your rash, realize that about 50% of the people diagnosed with Lyme never saw the tick, and over 50% of those who actually had the rash did not see a bull’s eye.” – Amy Tan Tick-borne illnesses are a threat that we must take seriously. At this point vigilance and prevention are the best tools we have. We can outsmart these prehistoric pests. “Ticks crawl up” (University of Rhode Island). Remember to tuck in your pants and pull up your socks.

–Jan Kennedy

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Make checks payable to: Greater Mohican Audubon Society P.O. Box 907, Ashland, OH 44805