Finally! This was the 8th time that I walked the breakwall and/or went up to the Lake in hopes of finding the Purple Sandpiper and today was my lucky day. Thanks goes out to Dan Sanders and John Keunzli for it was their dogged determination that got the birds. Personally I was tired today But walked out there once again on the breakwall at Headlands Beach State Park. We dodged waves and remaining ice and snuck around the lighthouse, then there at the very end nearly of the break was the bird, he even hopped up ontop of one of the stacks of large blocks out there. Then He afforded great looks after flying around us and back towards the lighthouse. We had cautiously approached and stood stiil while I took some photo's as the fun little bird walked around and fed on some stuff right near us. We had first gone and explored far and wide at Mentor Lagoons area to try and find the King Eider, but we only found some usual birds and a group of about 15 birds made up of SURF SCOTERS AND BLACK SCOTERS. Some of the first year male Surf's made us look very carefully since they looked so funny with shaggy brown tones and yellow on the bills. Oh well. We also hit Eastlake Powerplant where John Announced he was on an apparent adult GLAUCOUS GULL. It was in quite close on the water, a larger whiter bird with obvious white wingtips, and a pale gray mantle. John had seen it flap and that was what alerted him first. I got out to try and digi-scope a picture but of course as soon as I had just about set up, the bird flew. It was neat to see it fly tho, such a pale bird, and a first for me. We also had LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL, and the other 4. Of course there was also several thousand Red-breasted Mergansers, plus a couple Common Mergansers and a Comm. Goldeneye. Today we also saw about 5 Bald Eagles including one Juvenile. Well thats all for now, I'm really tired, but what a relief to get the mystical beast known as Purple Sandpiper at last. - 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]