News of two sources of interesting information appeared today. An article in The Condor reports results of surveys of nesting shorebirds (hundreds of thousands of them) and their habitats in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: http://www.bioone.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1650%2F0010-5422(2007)109%5B1%3ASAADOT%5D2.0.CO%3B2 Also the National Audubon Society has released a study of North American bird population trends over the past 40 years, based on the two largest studies--the Breeding Bird Survey and the Christmas Bird Counts. Media outlets have various versions of a list of the top 20 common birds apparently in serious decline over the past 40 years. http://stateofthebirds.audubon.org/CBID/ will get you started. Here are a bunch of short pages designed for the near-novice, lots of images, invitations to join NA, etc. There is also a link to the Technical Report, apparently a draft, which contains some valuable data and descriptions of statistical methodologies (way beyond me), as well as discussion of how data were weighted that's more accessible. I could not get to a lot of tables referenced. I wish there had also been an extended essay that omitted the most technical considerations but summarized results for people who want to read more than hot-button media-ready announcements. No doubt this presentation will be improved. On the currently very slow Web site, we hear a lot about the "Top 20 Common Birds in Decline" on a continental scale ( http://www.audubon.org/bird/stateofthebirds/CBID/browseSpecies.php ) The version in my daily paper, likely from a press release, contained 21 Ohio species--apparently all those with local declines of 50% or more--16 of which do not appear on the continental list of 20; it is not accessible on the Web site. I couldn't find this list on Audubon Ohio's site, but here is what appeared in the Columbus Dispatch today (the % is that of decline, apparently locally in Ohio): Northern bobwhire 99% Grasshopper sparrow 99% Vesper sparrow 91% Henslow's sparrow 85% Green heron 82% Cerulean warbler 80% Red-headed woodpecker 78% Eastern meadowlark 75% Bobolink 70% Hairy woodpecker 68% Northern flicker 67% Bank swallow 64% Red-winged blackbird 64% Yellow-breasted chat 63% Savannah sparrow 62% Acadian flycatcher 61% Eastern wood-pewee 60% Field sparrow 59% American redstart 58% Prairie warbler 54% Great crested flycatcher 52% It would have been just as interesting to see the "Top 20 Birds in Increase" as well; this, for example, might reflect on habitat loss as a cause of declines. Anyway, the lists are interesting and provocative, and invite digging more deeply. It would be especially interesting to hear reactions from 40-year veterans of the Ohio birding scene. 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]