Michelle and I bought a house last year in Cleveland Heights, and moved in at the end of spring migration. The selling point was a wide sunroom with five windows overlooking a small bit of lawn and then our fraction of a larger woods. The woods are surprisingly large given how suburban the location is, but it is a ravine with a small stream that runs year round, and thus it could not be developed. Yard is in yellow:
As you can see below, we are by the best woodlot for a few square miles. It was big enough to host a Wood Thrush and a Great Crested Flycatcher this summer. To the northeast is a golf course that is up for sale, and will either be developed or turned into a park; I am not optimistic (rumors are that it will become a damn Super WalMart!).
The current view out of the sunroom:
The summer view:
A friend bands birds a few miles south of here, and I think they end up in my yard occasionally. I don't know what species of bird this is (a canary?), but it has lovely jewelry.
I set up a water feature last year which was only marginally successful (Swainson's Thrush, Bay-breasted Warbler, in addition to the normal yard birds). I'll be looking to redesign it this year.
And last but not least is Ivor, the hound who patrols the land, ignoring birds and mildly deterring deer. We lost half our tomatoes and most of our peppers last year to the deer, as well as a lot of the ornamental plants. They are the scourge of northern Ohio.
My apologies for spelling everything correctly, using appropriate grammar, and not taunting anyone in this post - it won't happen again. I'll be more distracted as I run up a ginormous warbler list this May, I promise.
Sweet setup Anj...have you seen my sweet setup?....yeah never mind.
ReplyDeleteBut keep on the look out fellas. Here in a month or so (fingers crossed), help AABO say hasta to The Wastelands and hello to The MegaLands. Stay tuned...
You mean the Boonedocks?? Consider me intrigued...
ReplyDeleteANJO - your yard is very similar to my yard situation. My backyard boarders an urban oasis green space. It's not as large as yours, but it should be fun to see how our yards stack up to each other. My warbler tally stands at 27 species and out did SEFI in the first annual warbler war - when he still lived at his infamous WI yard. He'll never hear the end of that one!
ReplyDeleteFor an urban location you really have it good, ANJO. I am expecting big things from you during spring migration in terms of forest interior birds. Curtis also lives in an urban "oasis", and although I expected to beat him in quality migrants given my high quality forest within close proximity of my house, the opposite has held true. He gets the high concentrations and much better diversity of forest birds during migration, since mine are "sucked" away by the huge riverine forest 1/4 mile from the house. Curtis's birds have nowhere else to go, hence the Cerulean, GWWA, BWWA, and several other species he has that I don't. Of course, even if you have the oasis, you're still fighting the ID issue (like CUDY).
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