Spent a few hours hiking around these two Scioto river parks near downtown Columbus looking for early migrants. The parking area/boat launch at Whittier has been re-opened and looks quie nice, which much better visibility of the river. Temperate migrants were in good supply (even cormorants), but neotropicals have yet to arrive here. Highlights included herons - only 4 Great Blue Herons, with no Egrets or Night Herons along the rather high-water river at Whittier cormorants - 10-20 in a loose flock above the Greenlawn dam at Whittier, along with several more flying north (look out, Erie!:-) ducks - only a few Mallards and 1 stray male N.Shoveler above the dam and nothing along the high-water river below the dam woodpeckers - quite a few, including 14 Downies, 6 sapsuckers, and 7 flickers flycatchers - only a few Phoebes flycatching in the freshly un-flooded riparian woods below the dam in Berliner park swallows - a flock of 10-12 Tree swallows hawking insects over the new wetland ponds along Whittier Ave, while a few Rough-wings were calling near the old railroad pylons in the river at Berliner (a traditional nest spot). No Cliffs have returned yet to the I-70 bridge nests. kinglets,gnatcatchers - fair #s of both kinglets, plus 3-4 blue-gray gnatcatchers scattered along the bikepath mimids - a mockingbird singing at Whittier was competing with 2 singing brown thrashers in the same stretch of bikepath warblers - only a few yellow-rumps, despite the nice temperatures and clear skies. Hopefully this category will grow soon. sparrows - still towhees, juncos, and 35-40 White-throats scattered along the bikepath at Whittier, but Fox sparrows seem to have gone Rob Thorn [log in to unmask] EarthLink Revolves Around You. ______________________________________________________________________ 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]