I waited for the snow to thin before venturing out to these nearby spots,
and was rewarded by meeting up with Bruce Simpson's bird walk group at
Blendon.  Open water at Thoreau Lake and at Hoover have made for
interesting waterfowl stopovers, but the feeders at Blendon were strangely
quiet for a snowy day.  Notables for the day included:

Dabblers - the Blendon Black Duck horde was nearly 200 birds, and was
matched by a similar number of Mallards.  Also present were 15 Gadwall.
The Hoover Dam spillway had 4 more Gadwall and 5 N.Shovelers, along with
the expected pack of 50+ Mallards

Divers - Thoreau Lake had 1 Canvasback, 5 Redhead, and 3 Lesser Scaup.
Hoover had 5 Common Goldeneye at the ice edge beyond Walnut St., and 25
Hooded Mergansers just above the dam.

Wild Turkeys - unusual was a flock of 20 marching across the ice of Thoreau
Lake

Raptors - nothing at Blendon, but the Hoover Nature Trail (northeast of the
dam) had a pair of calling Red-shouldered Hawks

Woodpeckers - plenty of the common ones, but Pileateds were also at both
spots

E.Bluebirds - Bruce's team had a few, and I also found 2 on the Hoover
Nature Trail

Yellow-rumped Warblers - I couldn't find any, but Bruce's group had a few
behind Thoreau Lake

Sparrows - surprisingly scant, except for Song Sparrows.  2 Swamp Sparrows
were still along the east margin of the Hoover Dam spillway.

______________________________________________________________________

Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.


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