Having struck out on any out of the ordinary birds on November 11's Columbus Audubon Avid Birders trip, several of us went up this last Saturday to take advantage of better weather (for birders anyway). We started at Perry Park about 8:30am and ended at Edgewater Park about 3:30 pm, hitting most of the stops in between. At Perry Park, we didn't see anything rare, but there was a good movement of birds heading west, especially Red-Breasted Mergansers. I would broadly estimate that we saw at least 15,000 mergansers, and I'm probably on the low side by quite a bit. There were numerous Ring-Billed, Herring, and Bonaparte's Gulls on the move as well, with many Bonaparte's Gulls simply sitting out on the water, along with numerous Horned Grebes. Common Loons lived up to their name, as at least 15-20 different birds flew by or were present. We also had Bufflehead and Hooded Mergansers, as well as a lone Mallard. The next stop was Fairport Harbor, which was fairly quiet, with a few coots, some rafts of scaup, and the usual gulls. A lone Canada Goose was floating around, an obvious casualty of a hunter who cannot claim to be a dead-eye with a gun. As there wasn't much going on, we skipped over to Headlands and made our way out towards the lighthouse, where two of our group had gone on ahead while we were at the harbor. As we looked to see where they had set up, a Jaegar flew by the lighthouse, a dark bird with white flashes only in the wingtips. This was all the motivation we needed to scramble across the breakwall all the way to the end, where we observed the bird sitting on the water for a few minutes, before it got up and flew off. Before it disappeared, those of us who got good looks noted that the bird had a slender appearance, with wings that seemed narrow from the base of the wing through the tip. Again, white was only present in the wing tips. After much discussion and consultation of field guides, we settled upon an identification of Parasitic Jaeger, based on the slender, not stocky, appearance of the bird and the narrow appearance of the base of the wings where they meet the body of the bird. We thought that a Pomarine Jaeger should have appeared more broad in the chest and the wings, and that was definitely not the impression this bird gave off. Brad Sparks said his initial impression upon first sighting the bird from the start of the breakwall was that it was a falcon, whereas a Pomarine Jaeger should have bore more resemblance to a gull. After the Jaeger excitement, we headed to Eastlake Power Plant, where we had excellent looks at a Peregrine Falcon, but there was surprisingly little activity close in to the plant, aside from the usual gulls. We then made a stop at Sims Park, and had great views of White-Winged, Black, and Surf Scoters, along with a Red-Throated Loon (thanks to the Amish birders there who found the bird). Next was an attempt to find the Red-Necked Grebe with no luck, and we ended the day at Edgewater Park with nice views of the Brant. All in all, a great day at the lake, considering we didn't have to turn into human icicles to enjoy birding! Andy Sewell Columbus, Ohio _____ This mailbox protected from junk email by MailFrontier Desktop from MailFrontier, Inc. http://info.mailfrontier.com ______________________________________________________________________ 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]