Hi all, I was up in the western marshes and vicinity over the weekend, and will report some highlights. First, though, a big thanks and congrats to the organizers and participants of the first Ohio Young Birders Conference, held Saturday at the new visitors center at Ottawa Nat'l Wildlife Refuge. The event came off beautifully, and pretty much filled the conference room to capacity with about 75-80 people, some of whom had come from far-flung haunts to be there. Kudos to presenters Ethan Kistler, Auriel Van Der Laar, Phil Chaon, and Andy Bankert. All were exceptional, as was Emcee Brad Wilkinson. Credit goes to Kim Kaufman of Black Swamp Bird Observatory for inspiring this, and everyone who helped. I thoroughly enjoyed the day, and I think everyone else did too. There were still a number of migrants to be had at the Magee Marsh bird trail and Metzger Marsh. I saw or at least heard about 20 species of warblers, including a Connecticut at the bird trail. There were still decent numbers of late migrants like Chestnut-sided, Magnolia, Bay-breasted, Blackpoll, American Redstart, and Wilson's. Lesser numbers of Nashville, Northern Parula, Blackburnian, Black-and-white, Ovenbird, and Canada were around. Several Lesser Scaup and one Greater were offshore near Maumee Bay in Lake Erie, as were a few Red-breasted Merganser. Metzger Marsh remains the shorebird capital of the area; birds that I saw or heard about there on Saturday included Black-bellied Plover, Semipalmated Plover, Killdeer, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Solitary, Spotted, Semipalmated, and Least sandpipers, Whimbrel (3), Ruddy Turnstone (70+), Dunlin, and Short-billed Dowitcher. Cuckoos are in good to great numbers, with MANY Yellow-billeds about. I must have seen or heard 30 over the weekend, along with a few Black-billed. Noteworthy were many migrating Alder Flycatchers; we had perhaps ten of them on Saturday. A fair number of Philadelphia Vireos are passing through, too. The Cedar Waxwings are abundant, and many Catharus thrushes are still moving through, including good numbers of Swainson's and Gray-cheeked along with several Veery. On Sunday, a number of us had a fantastic trip to the Oak Openings, and we had many of the regional breeding specialties like Summer Tanager, Blue-headed Vireo, Black-throated Green Warbler, Blue-winged Warbler, Pine Warbler, and Yellow-breasted Chat, along with singing Lark Sparrows. Nice was a very cooperative Olive-sided Flycatcher; they are late migrants and should still be watched for. We also made some extraordinary non-bird finds, but that'll be blog material. Jim McCormac Columbus, Ohio ______________________________________________________________________ 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]