Not sure which areas Charlie Bombaci hit, but the north end wasn't quite that barren of waterfowl. I started up at the Boardwalk near Galena, and there were lots of Horned Grebes there probably 20+ and then the young EARED GREBE was still there and this time very close to the boardwalk near the middle part. It was fun to watch the little bird (and its orange eyes) as it choked down fish after fish. Some Hooded Merganser's were visible from there way on out there, and some were closer in. I saw one of the Horned Grebes do something odd (i thought) I saw it carrying something in its bill and at first didn't know what it was, upon scoping out I saw that it was a Maple leaf (or sim. leaf) and I watched as it carried it for some distance, The Eared Grebe started following it. This was all rather amusing, and finally the Horned dropped the leaf and swam around it almost taking it up again, but must have decided that it was a silly thing to do after all and it left the leaf there on the water. Another neat thing was getting to see the Eared Grebe float right by the boardwalk, we could see its feet that stick way out back, as it swam by. After this we hit Oxbow (many of the birds were seen on the other side shoreline and to the north) and then Mud-hen Marsh. list; Boardwalk Horned Grebe -20 EARED GREBE - 1 Hooded Merganser - 10+ Bonaparte's Gull - 6 Ringbilled - 20+ GBH - 5 Kingfisher, Belted - 2 Red-tailed Hawk T.V. Golden-crowned Kinglet - 3 Yellow-rumped Warbler - 2 White-throated Sparrow - 4 Junco - 5 Red-bellied Woodpecker - 2 Downy Woodpecker - 1 Carolina Wren - 3 Oxbow Gadwall - 10 N. Shoveler - 30 (far shore, some males lookin' decent) Mallard - 20+ N. Pintail - 5 Ring-neck Duck - 10 Hooded Merg. - 40+ Horned Grebe - 4 Pied-blled Grebe - 14 Common Loon - 1 D.c. Cormorant - 7 Lots more of the gulls mentioned before Mud-hen N. Mocking bird - 2 N. Cardial - 4 C. Chickadees Tufted Titmice White-b. Nuthatch Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 3 Golden Crowned Kinglet - 2 Song-sparrows - seen and singing Downy Woodpecker - 2 Can.Go. - 30 (some flyover) Mallard - 10 Coot - 15 Am. Crow- 20 Blue Jay - 8 Cooper's hawk - 1 spotted him perched and then later as he was chasing a cardinal (don't know if he got it) It was a pretty good day out there and the views were decent, especially good views of the grebes off the boardwalk. Good Birding, Ben Warner ________________________________________________________________________ Check out the new AOL. Most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from across the web, free AOL Mail and more. ______________________________________________________________________ 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]