Started the day off at 8:00 with the weekly Wed. morning birdwalks at Kenyon College's Brown Family Environmental Center, that straddles the Kokosing River and GAP bike trail. Had a good sized group show up today, well 9 people anyway, other than me. The Fox Sparrows were on my mind, and that is what we found!!!! Also had first of the year for the property, TREE SWALLOWS and singing FIELD SPARROWS. The Foxes were seen along the upper field and there were probably about 10 up there, they were singing away as well, a real treat. There were at least 3 E. TOWHEES as well. A final migrant, the E. PHOEBE was singing away also. List: Wood Duck - 2 drake seen along the river on the way driving to the center Canada Geese E. Bluebirds Am. Robin Am. Goldfinch - singing away R. Bellied Woodpecker - a pair looking friendly N. Flicker - another pair and the other usuals E. Phoebe Fox Sparrow - 8-10 White-throated Sparrow - 6+ Field Sparrow - 2 American Tree Sparrow - 5 Song Sparrow - 10 E. Towhee - 3 Junco - 15 Tree Swallow - 6 E. Meadowlark - seen on the nearby road Red-wing B.b. - plenty Grackle, Common Next I hit the Delaware Wildlife Area with some friends along Leonardsburg Road, near where there are several Blue-bird nest box grids, Kestrel nest boxes, and a Bald Eagle's nest. There were a few migrant waterfowl around but not as much as we'd hoped. We were able to pish up some Swamp Sparrows who then also began singing away quite obligingly. Very fun to watch. Also on some of the trails here were about a dozen more FOX SPARROWS !!!! Their hauntingly beautiful songs danced across the brushy landscape, it was awesome, such a beautiful bird, fun to see 4 in one small tree. Also here and singing away vigorously was a BROWN THRASHER. List: Fox Sparrows Field Sparrows Swamp Sparrows W.t. Sparrows Song Sparrows E. Towhee - 12! Junco Tree Swallow - 100s, this was tree swallow central. Golden Crowned Kinglet - 6 Brown Thrasher =1 Belted Kingfisher - 1 Bald Eagle - 1 Sitting under nest in the tree, I had heard he wasn't here yet, but looks like now he is. Am. Kestrel - 1 male Great Blue Herons Blue Winged Teal - 10 G.W. Teal - 10 Ring-necked Duck - 15 Ruddy Duck - 5 Am. Wigeon - 4 Am. Black Duck - 8 Mallards Wood Duck - 10 Hooded Merganser - 2 female Pied-billed Grebe - 2 Am Coot. Killdeer Ring-billed Gulls T.V. we also saw a mink cross the road, and Am. Toads and Leopard frogs were calling, plus a couple Chorus Frogs. I then hit Alum Res. at the north end and saw 2 pairs of Osprey back at the Nesting Platforms, it doesn't look like they have settled on which platforms the prefer, saw both pairs with fish they'd caught and one pair was at #1, the other at #2. Monday I saw a pair at #4 platform. One Osprey had a Transmitter antenna sticking out from its back (at #1). There were also a pair of Hooded Mergs. here. We cruized the rest of the resevoir but only had Bonaparte's Gulls and a couple of Horned Grebes to add to the list. Finally we did Hoover Resevoir and found a pair of Osprey at the Nest platform near the boardwalk, with quite a nice nest built up. Also here were Golden Crowned Kinglets, which I've been seeing every day lately even yesterday when I was on OSU's crowded campus streets. Double Crested Cormorants are all over around here, and far out on the water from the board walk we could just make out a large raft of ducks, at 60x or so they looked to be mostly Scaup (probly lesser) and a few Redhead. A drive of the rest of the resevoir yielded only mallards, Coot, and Ruddy Ducks. It was a fun day of birding overall, especially seeing so many of one of my fav's - the Fox Sparrows. - Ben Warner ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com. ______________________________________________________________________ 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]