Ohio Crane Count

The Sandhill Crane as listed as threatened in Ohio.  Sandhills can be quite secretive during their nesting season, and to better track Ohio’s breeding crane population, Ohio is expanding the Midwest Crane Count, a volunteer count, coordinated by the International Crane Foundation. The survey takes place for two hours on a designated Saturday morning in April. In 2021, Ohio conducted a pilot season in the counties of Geauga, Summit, Trumbull, Holmes, Wayne, and Wyandot counties. The effort documented 160 Sandhill Cranes in those 5 counties.

The count expanded into the additional counties starting in 2022, including Ashland, Columbiana, Delaware, Erie, Franklin, Fulton, Geauga, Hardin, Knox, Logan, Lucas, Marion, Ottawa, Pickaway, Richland, Sandusky, and Williams counties.  The survey date this year will be April 15, 2023 from 6:30-8:30 am (i.e., 15 minutes before sunrise).  

Additional Resources

eBird mobile checklist sharing tutorial – Geauga County Coordinator Matt Valencic put together this short illustrated tutorial explaining how to share each checklist with the International Crane Foundation – part of our data submission process.

eBird Essentials Course – Get up to speed on how the largest biological citizen-science program in the world can help you with your birding. The eBird community gathers more than 100 million bird sightings each year from people like you. Providing a powerful tool for motivated bird enthusiasts everywhere, eBird helps you find more birds and keep track of your sightings. Collectively, these sightings are now empowering a global scientific community and helping answer pressing conservation questions. Full of video tutorials, this free course will get you ready to confidently store and share your sightings with eBird.

eBird Breeding and Behavior Codes – For observations of Sandhill Cranes, we are requesting that volunteers use eBird’s Breeding and Behavior Codes whenever possible. This set of codes provides a standardized set of information about the species’ breeding behavior and give lend more support for the species nesting in that location. A complete list of codes and their definitions is available at the link above.

Video Tutorials

County Coordinators

*additional details coming soon*

County	Coordinator	Additional Information
Ashland	TBD, contact Matthew Shumar at OBCI
Columbiana	Chuck McClaugherty
Delaware	Rich Bradley
Erie	Emily Kuzmick
Franklin	Jen Moore, Jason Parrish
Fulton	TBD, contact Matthew Shumar at OBCI
Geauga	Dan Best, Matt Valencic
Hardin	Nancy Risner
Holmes	Randy Carmel
Knox	Cory Gratz
Lake	Megan Hart
Licking	Chance Patznick
Logan	Troy Shively
Lucas	Jay Wright
Mahoning	TBD, contact Matthew Shumar at OBCI
Marion	James Anderson
Morrow	TBD, contact Matthew Shumar at OBCI
Ottawa	Mark Shieldcastle
Pickaway	TBD, contact Matthew Shumar at OBCI
Portage	Rebecca Rodhe, Holly Stoneberg
Richland	TBD, contact Matthew Shumar at OBCI
Sandusky	Mark Shieldcastle
Stark	TBD, contact Matthew Shumar at OBCI
Summit	Dwight Chasar
Trumbull	Carole Babyak
Wayne	David McConnell
Williams	TBD, contact Matthew Shumar at OBCI
Wyandot	TBD, contact Matthew Shumar at OBCI

Survey block maps

Maps for each survey block are available below, organized by county. Click a county name to expand the page for a preview of the blocks within the county and a list of the target blocks within each county. The survey block system is the same as that used for the Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in Ohio, and represents 1/6^th of a U.S. Geological Survey 7.5-minute topographic map. Complete details on the Atlas block and survey design are available in the final book.