INFORMATION

INFORMATION
Bird habitat program
Vindicator outdoors columnist Scott Shalaway will host a program on building backyard bird habitat at the Youngstown Public Library main branch at noon Tuesday.
BOOKS
Reference guideon Ohio birds
The bible of Buckeye birders - and a handy reference for backyard birdwatchers throughout Ohio - has been revised and updated and is now available.
The second edition of "The Birds of Ohio" (688 pp., paperback, $21.95, The Wooster Book Company) documents the species that nest in, migrate through, and sometimes mysteriously appear in the state (like a lost Atlantic puffin in Toledo) more than 400 in all.
Included are details on distributions and abundance, migration and nesting dates, and, for the first time, maps from the Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas. The author is Bruce G. Peterjohn, who wrote the first edition in 1988 (Indiana University Press).
Of interest to serious birders will be new information on winter gulls, hawk migration, and northern birds in hemlock forests - the magnolia warbler, for example - along with 12 years of new records, such as the state's first boreal owl (Lake County, 1997).
Backyard birdwatchers can use the book to check arrival and departure dates, which can help with identification. In February, for example, it's likely that an unseen bird saying "peent" is an American woodcock, not a common nighthawk.
Peterjohn, formerly of Ohio and a graduate of the College of Wooster, works at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, Md., where he was coordinator of the North American Breeding Bird Survey and currently is coordinator of the center's operational monitoring programs.
"The Birds of Ohio" is available from The Wooster Book Company, 205 W. Liberty ST., Wooster, Ohio, 44691, 1-800-WUBOOK! Make checks payable to The Wooster Book Company. Include $4 for shipping for the first copy and $1 for each additional copy. Ohio residents should add $1.27 sales tax per copy.
For more information, call 1-800-WUBOOK1 or (330) 262-1688.
PENNSYLVANIA
OHV winter-usetrails closed on ANF
All Off Highway Vehicle trails on the Allegheny National Forest, which include all trails designed for use by ATVs, snowmobiles, and motorbikes are now closed for the season, effective April 1.
Trails designed for use by OHVs have two distinct seasons - summer and winter. Regulating use by season helps prevent environmental damage by having the trails closed during the worst of spring and fall rains and snowmelt. Closed seasons also provide an opportunity to do maintenance on those heavily used trails.
The closed trails will be gated and signs posted altering trail riders to the closure. Trail riding on the ANF during the closed season is subject to citation ad fine. All ATV Trails will open for summer use the Friday before Memorial Day. Call (814) 723-5150 or any Forest Service office for additional information, or visit our website at www.fs.fed.us/r9/allegheny.