Wayne County leads the way in first official Ohio sandhill crane count with 84 birds

Once gone from Ohio’s landscape, the sandhill crane is making a remarkable comeback in the Buckeye State, and Wayne County is ground zero for the revival.

And now, it’s official, as the Midwest Crane Count was conducted in mid-April by a group of volunteers, and Wayne County far and away was the No. 1 location for the spotting of the majestic bird.

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Statewide, 371 sandhill cranes were found in a count coordinated by the Ohio Division of Wildlife, the International Crane Foundation, and the Ohio Bird Conservation Initiative.

Conducted in pre-selected counties known to have sandhill crane nesting habitat (wetlands), Wayne County topped the list with volunteers documenting 84 birds. Geauga County was second with 56, followed by Trumbull with 47, and Holmes County with 18. Volunteers in Ashland County counted 11 sandhill cranes.

“The main goal is to document the breeding status of sandhill cranes in Ohio. They’re very secretive during breeding,” said David McConnell, a professor of Sociology and Anthropology at The College of Wooster, who was the coordinator for volunteers in Wayne County. “The last survey in Ohio was in the 1920s.”

Officials did a dry run last year counting 160 sandhill cranes.

Hunting and loss of wetlands nearly wiped out sandhill cranes in 1900s

“Sandhill cranes were highly extirpated from Ohio in the early 1900s due to hunting and the loss of wetlands for farming,” said McConnell. “So, this survey is to see how they’re doing now, but the other aspect is just to raise awareness, understand their life history and behavior, and to help foster an appreciation for such an amazingly charismatic and beautiful bird.”

So, why are there so many sandhill cranes in Wayne County?

“I think we have the most habitat,” said McConnell. “The Killbuck Marsh Wildlife Area and Funk Bottoms are ideal habitat. That’s what’s behind those numbers. It’s not a fluke or related to the number of volunteers.”

Last year, McConnell had six volunteers help him count birds in Wayne County, and this year the number was up to 16. In Holmes County, where Randy Carmel was the coordinator, he had 14 birders help count sandhill cranes. McConnell also helped with the Ashland County crane count.

“What we used was the Ohio Breeding Bird census blocks for Wayne County,” said McConnell. “We looked at which blocks had cranes reported on E-Bird and only looked for (sandhill cranes) in blocks where they were reported. We covered nine blocks in Wayne County for two hours on a Saturday morning.”

Holmes County's Crane Swamp homes to most of the county's sandhill cranes

Carmel, who has been helping the Division of Wildlife’s Laura Kearns, the state’s wetland birds specialist, with surveys for years, was all in when it came to acting as volunteer coordinator for Holmes County.

“It was a natural fit to do the sandhill crane survey, it was an extension of what I’ve been doing for 30 years,” said Carmel, a retired science teacher from Wooster High School.

The real connection, though, is Carmel’s affiliation with the Killbuck Watershed Land Trust, of which he’s the president. He writes conservation easements to preserve land in a five-county area, and recently helped lock up 350 acres of property south of Killbuck to be known as the Killbuck Swamp Preserve.

A big portion of that property will be known as Crane Swamp, with the old railroad bed going through it will be turned into a walking trail. It’s no secret that most of Holmes County's sandhill cranes were found there.

“We named it that because cranes are breeding there,” said Carmel.

A Midwest Crane Count has been conducted for years, but Ohio was never included until last year’s pilot count.

Sandhill cranes still a threatened species in Ohio

“There’s a lot of cranes here it turns out,” said McConnell.

In fact, there are probably a lot more than the spring count suggested, as many locations in the 24 pre-selected counties weren’t able to be checked due to the number of volunteers.

In Wayne County, for instance, the marsh east of Rittman, which actually was the first place to have a nesting pair in Ohio in 1987 since the extirpations of cranes in the 1900s, wasn’t one of the blocks surveyed.

Since that Wayne County nest in '87, the sandhill crane population has been slowly expanding, but the bird is still listed as a “threatened species” in Ohio.

During the winter, when area lakes, ponds and rivers freeze, a lot of Ohio’s nonmigratory sandhill cranes call the Big Spring at the Killbuck Marsh Wildlife Area home as it never freezes. Hundreds can be seen at a time.

A sandhill crane is a tall wading bird characterized by a long neck and bill. It is mostly gray in plumage with a red patch on its forehead. It is often recognized by its rolling bugle call.

Sandhills are migratory, breeding in wetlands across the northern U.S. and Canada, and wintering farther south in North America.

Volunteers interested in helping with the 2023 Midwest Crane Count can mark their calendars for Saturday, April 15, 2023.

Volunteers should be familiar with crane identification by sight and sound. More information is available from the Ohio Bird Conservation Initiative or the International Crane Foundation.

The 24-county sandhill crane count was: Ashland 11; Columbiana 1; Delaware 1; Erie 1; Franklin 3; Geauga 56; Hardin 6; Holmes 18; Knox 2; Licking 2; Logan 11; Lucas 60; Mahoning 1; Marion 11; Ottawa 17; Pickaway 1; Portage 3; Richland 2; Summit 2; Trumbull 47; Tuscarawas 2; Wayne 84; Williams 12; and Wyandot 17, for a total: 371, in 2022.

Outdoor Correspondent Art Holden can be reached at letsplabal@yahoo.com 

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Wayne County is No. 1 in Ohio for sandhill cranes in state count