I spent some of the cold morning driving and hiking around areas near Darby Creek in southwestern Franklin County.  Most ground was frozen, and the wind was bitter, but the sky was clear and many birds were lurking in windless areas.  Most of the backroads had small numbers of Horned larks, but I couldn't find any Snow Buntings or Longspurs.  The areas with honeysuckle berries hosted fair-sized flocks of Robins and Starlings.  Most unusual bird of the morning was a Purple Finch at the feeder in the parking area of the Indian Ridge section of Battelle-Darby MetroPark.

On the return trip, I scouted for more goose flocks along the southwestern edge of suburbia, along Alton-Darby Creek Rd and Galloway Rd.  The big pond along A-DC Rd had a flock of 350 geese, nothing but giant Canadas, along with 100+ mallards and a lone Ring-necked Duck.  The Galloway Ponds had another 150 C-Geese and 50 mallards. The pond at Sunset Cemetery had a few C-geese and its usual assortment of mallards, muscovies, and everything in between.  It's a real den of waterfowl iniquity there.

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