Cemeteries

can be pretty lively places, especially when they adjoin a wooded ravine and the city has set aside a "growing, not mowing" zone in a currently-unused area. Marietta's Oak Grove Cemetery is known as a birding spot and there have been reports of a few early migrants on Facebook, so even though 2:00 PM is not generally a great time for birds, it was the warmest part of a sunny afternoon, so off I went.

Not much avian activity was noticeable in the lower portion of the cemetery, but unfamiliar bird calls were wafting down the hill. In need of exercise, up I went, and was rewarded with a life bird: a yellow-bellied sapsucker. Even though these little woodpeckers sometimes winter in southern Ohio, often pass through on migration, and leave signs of their sap-hunting on trees I have known, I had managed never to see the bird itself. This one I initially thought might be a hairy woodpecker working its way around a tree, but when it took off, its namesake yellow underparts revealed its true identity. I am not organized enough to keep a life list, but a new bird a few blocks from home is always a good thing.

The cemetery was also hosting its more usual denizens today. A blue jay was warning all and sundry of my presence while cardinals and chickadees were calling from various trees. A pair of tufted titmice may have been checking a tree for a nesting site, and robins were everywhere, as was their song. 

Heading home along the ravine, I spotted a red-bellied woodpecker, common in our area but not often at my home feeders. An unmistakable sign of spring was the gaggle of grackles hanging out in the evergreens along the sidewalk. And of course, there were scads of starlings, the local horde of which managed to consume the last suet cake in this winter's stash in less than twelve hours. 

The downy woodpeckers will have to make do with sunflower seed.