With only a few free hours, I stopped in several southern areas of the Reservoir, including the dam, Walnut St. launch, Area E, Duncan Glen, and Area O.  Waterfowl continue to linger, but in far fewer numbers than the past several weeks.  Landbirds are showing some late winter stragglers along with the first temperate migrants.  Highlights included:

Lesser Scaup - a flock of 90-100 birds was off Walnut Street boat launch

Red-br.Mergansers - only 5-6 were in the lower reservoir, much less than the 40-80 of last week

Cormorants - at least 3 were in different areas of the reservoir

Pied-billed Grebe - 1 was haunting the area just above the dam

Gulls - only 50-60 Ring-bills were joined by 5+ Bonapartes

Swallows - adult Tree Swallows were singing and squabbling over nest sites in Area F and Area O, but Cliff Swallows had not yet returned to several colonies that I visited.

Brown Thrasher - 2 were in a singing duel in the scrubby fields east of Area O

warblers - Yellow-rumps were at several locations, but Yellow-throated were missing from two likely locations.  They were absent all along the Darby yesterday, so most of them must be delayed.

Chipping Sparrows - singing birds in most locations; they've spread throughout central Ohio in the last 3 days

blackbirds - grackles, redwings, and cowbirds were common at all sites.

winter finches - a Pine Siskin was calling in the park below the dam, while a Purple Finch was singing in Duncan Glen on the Reservoir's east side

______________________________________________________________________

Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/.

You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]