From the Ohio birding e-mail listserv :

Subject: Common ravens, Jefferson Co
Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 20:57:35 -0400

Eleven of us from the Columbus area set out on an iffy search for common
ravens in Fernwood State Forest. My advice remains not to try to find
this area from the south: approach from the latitude of Steubenville and
work your way south; existing maps are inaccurate elsewhere. Our plan
was to watch for ravens in flight from the several very fine vistas
along the SF road. On our last stop on the way out--around noon--after
seeing little, we lucked into five or perhaps six ravens across the
valley. They were distant, but accommodating enough to perch repeatedly
for scope looks. We drove across the valley and chanced upon the flock
lower down on the slope, standing on or moving across a lawn in a quiet
residential setting 50 yds away. Quite aware of us, they quickly hid,
and a fair amount of searching didn't find them again. But it appears
the group is sticking fairly close to the nesting area. They seem to
approach quiet human habitations, but are very wary up close. Others
might have more luck looking earlier or later in the day. Anyway,
everybody but me got a new bird for their Ohio lists.

It's a birdy area, where we saw ~60 spp as we walked the road,
including black-billed cuckoos in two places. We'll send in anything
that might add to Scott's excellent OBBA coverage of the area. A stop on
the way back at Harrison Co airport produced a couple of upland
sandpipers, and other grassland birds like meadowlarks, bobolinks,
grasshopper sparrows, etc. The SPs will not be along much longer, but if
you go, do stop at the manager's office at the hangar and obey all their
instructions; according to them some birders have been doing some
dangerous stuff like driving on the runways, parking in the taxi lanes,
etc. We found the SPs at the north end by walking uphill NW toward the
fence along private property.

We saw a lot of unexpectedly productive areas in this seldom-visited
area. We are thinking about a day-long visit to Egypt Valley another
time. A nighthawk is calling over the back yard now, a good end to a
good day.

2009

Subject: Common Ravens in Jefferson County
From: Aaron Boone
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:52:37 -0400

Now is the time to get out and look for Common Ravens in eastern Ohio. I
got an email from Eric Hall, an OBBA2 volunteer from PA, saying that he had
Common Ravens in Jefferson County recently. His first bird was near New
Alexanderia on March 1st. The second sighting was near Newell on March 9th.
New Alexandria is relatively close to Ohio's first documented nest record in
over 100 years (Spring 2008, Fernwood State Forest). Newell is a small town
farther to the west, close to the Harrison County line.

Along with the birds at Fernwood SF (first found by Scott Albaugh in 2006
and 2007), birds also turned up [with photographs] in Monroe and Washington
counties last spring. With a bit more exploration, I'd imagine that more
ravens will start showing up in eastern counties.

Last year's nesting ravens placed a nest on a remnant "highwall" from strip
mining activity. So, areas that have been strip mined might be a great
place to start.