Birding with Kenn and Kimberly

An update on Black Swamp Bird Observatory's struggle to  protect birds from  poorly placed wind turbines in the  critical migratory bird stopover habitat in northwest Ohio.  You've all seen that play, right?  The runner has the ball, he's fighting off defenders like a mad man, dragging tacklers down the field, making forward progress in spite of the odds, and then... WHAM!    He gets clobbered by the one he didn't see coming. The image below is the one we didn't see coming. A large wind turbine ready to be installed at the  Erie Business Park in Ottawa County, Ohio.  Only a few miles from Magee Marsh. Would that it were only a game. And when the play ended and the whistle blew, we could simply shake off the hit and return to real life. But it isn't a game. This is real life. The playing field is critical migratory bird habitat. The players are just ordinary people with an EXTRAordinary level of dedication to protecting...

Kirtland's Warbler: North America's rarest songbird species. The only known consistent stopover area  for this bird during its migration is in northwestern Ohio - the area now being threatened by wind power development. From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn writes:  Our book tour of New England was wonderful, but it was cut short by the approach of Superstorm Sandy.  We had to cancel our last appearances on October 29 and 30, and since all flights were cancelled as well, we drove our rental car back to Ohio through the rain and high winds, arriving safely at home on the 30th.  Once there, however, we were dealing with an ill wind of another kind.  As many of you will know already, Black Swamp Bird Observatory (BSBO) has been leading an attempt to stop construction of a large wind turbine at the Camp Perry Air National Guard Station, on the Lake Erie shore in the heart of Ohio's premier bird migration hotspot of Magee Marsh / Crane Creek / Ottawa NWR. This is t...