We took the auto tour at Ottawa NWR mid-morning on Saturday, Feb 18. There
were amazing numbers of tundra swans (500+) in many places at Ottawa and
Metzger. Other abundant waterfowl were Canada geese and mallards. Small
numbers were seen of gadwall, Am. wigeon, black duck, canvasback, redhead,
coots. On Lake Erie, we saw rafts of scaup and common mergansers and a few
com. goldeneye. As to raptors, we saw a few harriers and kestrel and
several bald eagles. We saw five immature bald eagles perched together in
one tall tree. We did manage to find 12-15 white-winged crossbills at
Woodlawn cemetery in Sec 42. Although they are supposed to be feeding on
hemlock or spruce, these apparently did not read the books, because all
were feasting on seeds they were pulling from sweet gum balls. Randy Rowe

______________________________________________________________________

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]