I made the arc between these two sites on this cold morning, with Alum Lake dam thrown in, as part of a Columbus Audubon trip.  The featured target was supposed to be waterfowl on the opening reservoirs, but the recent cold weather has kept both Alum & Hoover locked in an ice embrace.  The only place with decent waterfowl was the spillway at HooverDam.

Alum Lake dam was the first stop, with no waterfowl other than Mallards in the open spillway here. With a narrow channel and no screening trees or bushes, it's not ideal waterfowl habitat.  Above the dam, the lake is completely iced-in up to the Cheshire bridge. The woods at either end of the dam held plenty of resident birds, but little else.  Most notable were a flock of 8 Cowbirds sitting in a tree along the east end of the dam, and a flock of Tree Sparrows in the fields near the Visitors Center north of the west end of the dam.

Highbanks had even more active residents, with many singing titmice & chickadees, along with some drumming woodpeckers.  We heard a Pileated along the Dripping Rock Trail, but couldn't track it down.  The Nature Center feeders were bustling, but had little of note other than a flock of 15+ Tree Sparrows.  The Naturalist there relayed that they had recent sightings of a Great Horned Owl along the DRT, as well as Bald Eagles along the open stretch of the Olentangy river adjacent to the park.

Hoover reservoir was completely iced-in above the dam (at least the southern part up to Maxtown), and had both geese and gulls sitting around out on the ice.  Below the dam the spillway channel was quite open, and had lots of mallards hiding along the shrubby edges.  Mixed in with the mallards were 7-8 N.Shovelers, 3 pair of Wigeon, and 2-3 Gadwall.  In the open water of the spillway were an additional 3 Lesser Scaup and 5-6 Hooded Mergansers.

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