This morning BobThobaben and I decided to check out some of the reported hot spots in our part of Ohio. Our first stop was the Youth Pond at Caesar Creek where there is still some open water along with a lot of snow and ice. Four wheel drive recommended. There we saw: 21 Canvasbacks 60 Coots (alive and feeding on zebra mussels 31 Coots dead, frozen on the ice - a sad picture which gave us a new sympathy for that species 28 Mallards - Bob pointed out these were the larger Canada Mallards 11 Redheads 7 Lesser Scaup 1 Black Duck 1 Bufflehead 1 Common Goldeneye 1 Red-shouldered Hawk 3 Canada Geese Moving to the Spring Valley blind highlights were: 1 FOX SPARROW 5 Downy Woodpeckers 2 White-breasted Nuthatches 18 Cardinals 8 Tree Sparrows 2 White-crowned Sparrows 25 White-throated Sparrpows 12 Song Sparrows 15 Goldfinch 1 Northern Mockingbird 1 Kestrel - in area by road The final stop was on Houston Road near Cornstalk Road and also a winner with: 3 LAPLAND LONGSPURS ( a scope is definitely useful here but sometimes the birds 7 SNOW BUNTINGS feed along the road) 50 Horned Larks 1 Male Northern Harrier 1 Red-tailed Hawk Happy Birder Cheers, Larry Gara, Wilmington ______________________________________________________________________ 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]