The first stop on today's agenda was Lake Rockwell, in hopes of relocating the poss. Western Grebe.  Emil Bacik, Jen Brumfield, and I covered the lake well, and did observe an ad. Red-throated Loon near the spot of yesterday's sighting, but unfortunately, had no luck with any variety of grebes.  There were 40 also Common Mergs present, and 31 Wilson's Snipe and 2 Least Sandpipers on the snow-covered flats at the lake's south end.

Emil and I then headed northeast to Conneaut where we were met with gale force winds and stinging sleet/snow/rain - great conditions for a lakewatch, but unfortunately, most of the Bonaparte's were out beyond the harbor's mouth, and nothing of interest was within the harbor.

After making a couple brief lakefront stops, we arrived at Eastlake Power Plant shortly before 3 PM.  Bonaparte's were moving consistently west here, and fairly near shore - the steadiest Bonaparte's movement that I have seen this fall.  About 15 minutes into the watch, a juvenile SABINE'S GULL appeared quite close to shore - actually the closest gull to land at the time.  The excitement had just barely begun to die down, and in the meantime, Jerry Talkington arrived scarily fast, when yet another juvenile SABINE'S passed just a little further out than the last.  There was no cyclical movement of birds, just a steady streaming west, so there is no doubt that two Sabine's were involved.  Most interesting, over the course of the next two hours, no Little Gull or anything else of interest was detected, though the Bonaparte's stream continued until the light faded.

Good birding -
Gabe Leidy
Cleveland

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