Greetings---I spent most of yesterday morning at Conneaut harbor.  There was some action early, and human/dog disturbance wasn't too bad until noontime.  I tallied 11 shorebird species.  It's always a treat to study the fresh juvs. up close there.  Here's the rundown: black-bellied plover (ad.), 18 killdeers, 5 semipalmated plovers (mostly adults), a juv. WILLET w/a very sore foot/leg, 3 juv. lesser yellowlegs, 3 ad. sanderlings, 6 each semipalmated & least sandpipers (mostly juvs.), a juv. BAIRD'S SANDPIPER, spotted sandpiper, and 3 short-billed dowitchers (1 a juv.).  Also of note: 2 gadwalls, green-winged teal, an alt-plumaged common loon flying west, double-crested cormorants, 20 turkey vultures, bald eagle, an osprey flying west while carrying a fish (sheephead ?), a fresh juv. Bonaparte's gull, 2 Caspian terns (ad. w/juv.), belted kingfisher, bank swallows, and some obvious migrant yellow warblers.  There was a third-year herring gull with
 completely dark eyes that I studied for quite awhile.  In the afternoon I headed SW through Ashtabula Co., first stop was the county airport in Denmark Twp.  More bad news from that site--a nice little wetland area (traditional spot for snipe, yellowlegs, etc. in Spring) had been filled over and thus destroyed.  Several years ago, a large area of adjacent woodlands was logged, eliminating a robust great blue heron nesting colony.  A huge field of soybeans now covers adjacent fields where grasshopper sparrows once sang.  And upland sandpipers no longer nest in the vicinity.  Happy, happy, joy, joy.  Down at Dorset WA, the water was high in the impoundment.  I found an Am. coot and bobolinks there.  As expected, the water is still very high at Pymatuning Res. also (even the Fish Hatchery and Miller's Ponds areas in PA).  At Orwell Marsh, there was a great egret but no shorebird habitat.  I did find 5 Am. kestrels, 4 e. kingbirds, purple
 martins, 125+ barn swallows, e. bluebirds, and e. meadowlark while slowly driving the Ashtabula Co. countryside.  On the way home I took a look around Mosquito L/WA.  Again, very high water levels and no shorebirds.  As a consolation, there were wood ducks, 3 great egrets, 4 bald eagles, 85 bank swallows, 50 barn swallows, and a couple singing swamp sparrows.  Later, Craig




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