Today was a nice sunny and I got up early hoping to spend the entire day at deer Creek. Unfortunately unexpected delays kept me from heading there until 3:00, and a couple of hour don't go very far there at this time of year. I checked out the beach and the N end only.

The beach was again filled with gulls. On the beach were :

1 LAUGHING GULL (1st year)
~225 Bonaparte's Gulls
~400 Ring-billed Gulls
1 Forster's Tern
Killdeers (several)
1 BAIRD'S SANDPIPER
1 Great Egret

If anyone still needs Laughing Gull for their 2006 Ohio list, that bird is about as sure of a bet as I've ever seen for that species around here. It never seems to stray from binocular range from the beach.  Several thousand more gulls were in the deepest southern part of the reservoir between the beach and marina, but neither of those 2 places offered a good vantage point, and time was too limited to scope through them.

The mudflats are quickly reappearing again at the N end of the reservoir near Pancoastburg. It's for the most part too little too late for most of the shorebird migration, but there were some birds utilizing it this evening :

~45 Killdeers
1 G Yellowlegs
1 L Yellowlegs
2 Least Sandpipers
1 Wilson's Snipe

Hopefully it will continue to drop. November typically brings large Dunlin flocks there, and hopefully some Sandhill Cranes too.

Bob Royse


Robert Royse
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www.roysephotos.com

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