With a little free time this morning, I hiked around these two neighboring areas in west-central Columbus (DeLorme p. 68 A1) to look for waterfowl and unsual landbirds. I could not relocate the Western Tanager despite looking around much of the Grandview neighborhood that it had frequented; Ridgeway Place was especially birdy, and it's possible that the bird could still be around there in the throngs of finches, cardinals, and sparrows. Most of the quarries & lakes around Marble Cliff were ice-free, and had the expected waterfowl for there. Highlights included: cormorant - 1 at Watermark Lake Great Blue Herons - 3-4 scattered along the Scioto River at Marble Cliff dabbling ducks - nothing but Mallards diving ducks - 28-30 Ring-necks were in an actively feeding flock at Watermark Lake mergansers - 6-8 Hooded Mergansers were scattered around different lakes at Marble Cliff gulls - only a scattering of Ring-bills were here. It usually needs to get much colder to drive large gull numbers to this area. woodpeckers - higher than expected #s of Downies & Red-bellies at both spots, along with a Hairy along the Scioto River bikepath wrens, creeper - Carolina Wrens were common around Grandview, with 7-8 on an hour-long walk; a singing Brown Creeper was here also. Robins - surprisingly few at both locations, but the wild berry crop is now pretty thin at both spots (even in Grandview) Sparrows - flocks of White-throats were common at both spots, along with a few juncos Finches - House finches were abundant in Grandview, while smaller #s of Goldfinches were at both locations. Rob Thorn [log in to unmask] EarthLink Revolves Around You. ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. 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]