I headed out before the bad weather this morning to look for odd geese and other waterfowl strays in these man-made lakes of western Franklin Co..  Darby Bend lakes is an old quarry in Prairie Oaks metropark.  It has 3 lakes that usually remain mostly ice-free for most of the winter.  This morning, it had 200 Canada Geese, 25 mallards, 11 Coots, and 1 Ruddy Duck.  No sign of the shrike that has been there on-and-off so far this winter.  Other landbirds there were unremarkable.

The Hilliard Lakes are a series of 9-10 'borrow pits' scattered along the length of Clover-Goff Creek (actually ditch is the better term, since the creek was 'straightened' to accomodate farming decades ago), running from Cosgray Rd and Hilliard Municipal park south through parks along Frazell & Spindler Roads.  This is the edge of suburbia, with dense housing to the east and farm fields to the west, so the area attracts huge numbers of urban-adapted waterfowl, mostly geese & mallards.  This morning was no exception, with around 900 geese and 700 mallards scattered around the lakes and fields.  No sign of the Snow Goose reported to Nate Nye earlier last week, nor could I find any Cackling, but this area is surely one of the best to look for them near Columbus.  Particularly good this morning was Frank Park; there a 'hidden pond' next to Lake Hollow Rd had over 700 waterfowl, including lots of tucked-in geese.  This would be the place to look for Cackling.  Landbirds along these ponds were no better than Darby Bend lakes, although Hilliard Municipal Park woodlot had a Cooper's hawk lugging around a squirrel that it had killed.

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