Ohio Birders, I have never been to Mosquito Lake, but heard a lot about it here on Ohio Birds. So, in spite of dire warnings of possible snow for Sunday night, I drove up there to see if I could find the 8 Long-tailed Ducks (LTDU) reported by others. Having never been there before, I started at the east side of the causeway at the boat ramp just before the causeway starts. I came in from the east side, because I used I76 - I80 and Rt 15 as my route to get there. I was attracted by a large flock of apparent waterfowl out on the lake, but they were decoys! surrounding a partially submerged hunter! While scanning further I found a Red-necked Grebe, at first rather close toward the south of the boat ramp parking lot relatively close to the shore. Eventually, it moved further out into the lake. I took one digiscoped photo. There were also about 5 Common Loons. Then I crossed the causeway and parked in the causeway parking area on the south side of Rt 88 toward the west side of the lake. The LTDU's were right out in front of me and were not very cooperative at first as they were diving frequently. It seemed that every time I looked though my scope at them, they dove. Maybe they didn't like the "big eye" looking at them. Eventually they became more cooperative. There was one apparent drake, still with a long tail, and in winter plumage (the white one), as breeding plumage for LTDU is quite dark and mostly black. The other 7 appear to be young/juvenile birds, but I'll need to look closely at my photos. I have photos from outside of Nome Alaska last year (2005) in the dark breeding plumage. As I worked my way south along the east side of Mosquito Lake, I kept my eyes to the skies, anticipating snow. East of Cortland, at a park beach I had 2 young Bald Eagles fly over. There was a very large flock of 500-1000 Bonaparte's Gulls on the water by the dam. They were resting and flying across the road to feed in the spillway area. I looked them over but didn't find anything unusual. A few Bufflehead on the lake. 4 south of the causeway (3 m, 1 f./im.) and abut 10 at the south end of the lake on the west side in the water off of the state park. About 5 Ruddy Ducks mixed in with a large flock of Mallards, obviously staying south away from the hunters! Smart ducks! I didn't escape snow entirely, as I drove through about three heavy snow squalls in the Akron and Mansfield areas. Jay Jay G. Lehman Cincinnati, OH [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. 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]