As I was leaving the house yesterday morning for my usual waterfowl count at Cowan Lake, my wife urged me to stay gone for a while so she could get some things done around the house. So after I finished at Cowan, I looked in at Harveysburg Road at Caesar Creek, Spring Valley and the Roxanna gravel pits. The result was an interesting comparison of waterfowl assemblages at these three well-known locations. At Cowan, the most numerous species were Canada Geese and Mallards. This is quite usual, owing to the extensive habitat for these species in the shallow east end of the lake. Still, during migration, the lake often holds diving ducks by the hundred. Saturday's leader was Lesser Scaup with a count of 83. The peculiar thing was the absence of Redhead and Ring-necked ducks, which usually tally about the same numbers as the scaup. At Harveysburg Road, I found Rick Asamoto looking at a flock of several hundred ducks, about 75% of which were Redheads. Most of the rest were scaup with a smattering of dabbling ducks. One Canvasback and a number of ring-necks rounded out the total. There were no coot, though there are often several hundred at this location at this time of year. The lack of dabbling ducks is in keeping with the deep water habitat at Caesar Creek. The extreme seasonal variation in the water level prevents the emergence of vegetation attractive to dabbling ducks. At Spring Valley, there was a number of Ring-necked Ducks and smaller numbers of dabbling ducks. However, American Coot outnumbered all the duck by a factor of about three. In past years, Spring Valley has hosted very large numbers of dabbling ducks in migration, many more than were in evidence on Saturday. At the Roxanna gravel pit, there were only twenty Canada Geese and a couple of ducks on the back side of the lake that I was not able to identify. The striking aspect of these observations is the lack of consistency in numbers and species composition from place to place. It suggests a strong stochastic element in waterfowl migration choices. Cheers, Bob -- Robert D Powell Wilmington, OH, USA [log in to unmask] Nulla dies sine linea ______________________________________________________________________ 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]