The bird list describes your chances of finding various birds in the Greater Cincinnati area. The list covers Hamilton County, along with adjacent counties in Ohio (Butler, Clermont and Warren), Kentucky (Boone, Campbell and Kenton) and Indiana (Dearborn and Franklin), plus extensions to include birding areas that extend into other counties (Hueston Woods, Caesar Creek Lake and Spring Valley Wildlife Area in Ohio, Brookville Lake and Whitewater State Park in Indiana, and Mehldahl Dam in Kentucky). Besides viewing the list here, you can also download a PDF file.
This is not a complete list of all birds which have ever been seen here. Only species which occur regularly have been listed. The finding codes indicate the chances of seeing or hearing a particular bird during a morning of solid birding. This is not quite the same as describing how common the bird is. The codes presume that the observer is experienced and is in the right habitat. They relate to a “normal” year, if there is such a thing. Many birds vary in their abundance from year to year, sometimes to a considerable degree.
The bird list also forms the basis for a daily checklist. This checklist is customized for the day of the year, showing only those species which can reasonably be expected to be present on that day. The daily checklist can be printed for use in the field.
We also have a link to the old Birding in Cincinnati bird sightings archive. From 1997 until the Audubon Society of Ohio web site was set up in early 2015, Ned Keller maintained a web site devoted to birding around Cincinnati. With the rise of Facebook and eBird, that site’s sightings log fell into disuse and became largely obsolete, but the sightings that were recorded then may still be of historical interest.