Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge has opened an auto tour of the refuge for next Saturday (9am-4pm), when waterfowl especially should be spectacular. Announced tours for coming months are scheduled for 21 April, 12&13 May, 16 June, 21 July, 18 August, and 15 September. The grand opening of the new green Visitor Center, now so visible from Rte 2, will take place 12 May. You can get this sort of news on the web site of the Ottawa NWR Association, a ten-year-old volunteer organization of friends of the refuge, at http://www.onwra.com/ . From the Association you will learn that chronic underfunding of refuges continues, and that ONWR will have to reduce its staff from ten to nine positions. That's right, just nine. Apparently a now-vacant position will be dropped, but this loss will affect efforts to control invasive plants (a great problem these days), and maintenance of roads and dikes (which may mean that auto tours may have to be scaled back). If you care about this, you might want to question your Federal representatives, and campaign/vote for or against them accordingly. Bill Whan Columbus ONWRA member from day one ______________________________________________________________________ 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]