I spent the last couple days in Northwest Ohio and primarily birded from Maumee Bay to Castalia. There are a lot of great birds around up there if you spend the time looking. In all I had 24 species of waterfowl over the two days. What surprised me were the lack of hawks. I saw more along Rte 2 from Huron to Lorain than I did up in that area. Of particular interest were the geese. I ended up with 5 species of geese. Best areas were ONWR north of the headquarters building and the east end of Cedar Point NWR. The trick to finding the geese is being there when they are heading from the refuges out to the fields. This weekend the birds were heading out starting around 2:00. If you are out in the morning like I was today, the geese were not in the fields. The ONWR flock could be observed this morning by walking north from the parking lot and then using a scope to check. Unfortunately the geese are sitting close so the smaller geese are difficult to find. If you watch them fly out it is a lot easier. Here is a brief overview of the flocks I checked out. 1) Rte 2 and Rte 4 in Sandusky- a couple hundred Canada geese and 2 snow geese. 2) ONWR (headquarters)- Several hundred Canada geese, 2 CACKLING GEESE, 2 WHITE-FRONTED GEESE, 15+ snow geese, and about 100 tundra swans. This flock flew out to Lickert-Harder Road south of Rte 2 and Rte 590 south of Rte 2. 3) Metzger and the western side of ONWR- these birds were flying into the stubble corn fields west of Metzger Marsh- a couple hundred Canada geese, 1 snow goose, and about 20 tundra swans. 4) The eastern end of Cedar Point NWR. These birds were landing in a field near the intersection of Yondota and Corduroy Roads. Included in this flock were several hundred Canada geese, 1 ROSS' GOOSE, 6 snow geese, and about 80 tundra swans. there were also over 1,000 ducks in this field. Most were mallards, but there were also close to 200 black ducks, and a few pintail. this is the largest black duck flock I have seen in a few years. 5) Stadium Road south of Bayshore Road. About 200 Canada geese. Other birds of note: LONG-TAILED DUCK- 1 female in Maumee Bay just northwest of the intersection of Stadium and Bayshore (seen Saturday only) ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK- One Saturday on the west side of ONWR and one today near Graytown) SANDHILL CRANE- A flock of 8 flew by the intersection of Yondota and Corduroy Roads heading south on Saturday. THAYER'S GULL- 1 1st winter bird at the Ottawa County dump on Saturday LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL- 1 adult at the Ottawa County dump on Saturday. there were several hundred birds there on Saturday, very few today. they were sitting on the south side of the hill. the dump is south of Camp Perry. NORTHERN SHRIKE- Bird seen on Saturday off Bodi Road which is south of Rte 2 just west of Turtle Creek. HERMIT THRUSH- 1st winter bird observed at Maumee Bay State Park just west of the camp office. John Pogacnik 4765 Lockwood Road Perry, OH 44081 440-259-2751 ______________________________________________________________________ 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]