Matt and Rick Erickson and I visited Deer Creek State Park earlier today.
High winds hampered our search for fall sparrows, but our consolation prize
was a pair of Franklin's Gulls at the beach. These two mostly were loafing
with dozens of Ring-billed, one Herring, and two Bonaparte's Gulls, but
flew enough for us to see their distinctive incomplete tail bands, quite an
interesting field mark.

For the record, sparrows included Song, Swamp, White-throated,
White-crowned, and (mostly) Savannah. Waterfowl were conspicuous by their
absence, both on the lake and on the several small ponds that we checked.
Three Black Vultures were fighting the wind along with large numbers of
their Turkey Vulture cousins.

--
Bill Heck

______________________________________________________________________

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]