Brad Sparks and I birded around Columbus today. Migrants were not thronging, but we found 24 warbler species, a couple of male summer tanagers squabbling over territory above the Highbanks MP nature center, and that there are now two alternate-plumaged laughing gulls off the boardwalk at the north end of Hoover Reservoir along with maybe a hundred crappy fishers. Clearly something is happening with rose-breasted grosbeaks. There were crowds of them facing one another off everywhere we found feeders. I've read of phenomenal numbers, always at feeders, in Ohio and other states this spring. Brad had an idea that makes sense to me: there aren't any more grosbeaks than usual, but something in the spring's weird weather has made some of their customary diet unavailable, forcing them to depend much more on feeders, hence we humans see far more of them than usual. Killing frosts in early April in the region reduced budding flowers and leaves. This devastated some fruit crops, and cut back on the leafing branches attractive to insects. Bent quotes McAtee's 1908 study of 178 sets of stomach contents of this species, observing that its food is about half and half animal and vegetable. He doesn't give much detail from McAtee, but relates rose-breasted grosbeaks eat lots of "harmful" insects (i.e., those that damage plants), and lots of blossoms, fruits, and buds. As for their diet during spring migration you'd expect that blossoms and buds would be in especially short supply this spring, and that the insects that flourish in them would be as well. A promising hypothesis. Does anyone have any special knowledge to evaluate it? If it seems to make sense, what other bird species might also be stressed just about now? Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ 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]