Yesterday at Clear Creek I saw the following birds on Creekside Meadow/Fern/Cemetery Ridge Trails: Great Blue Heron Green Heron Black Vulture Turkey Vulture Broad-winged Hawk Red-tailed Hawk Ruby-throated Hummingbird Red-bellied Woodpecker, feeding 2 juvs Downy Woodpecker Eastern Wood-Pewee Acadian Flycatcher, singing Eastern Phoebe Great Crested Flycatcher Yellow-throated Vireo, best look ever Warbling Vireo Red-eyed Vireo, lots, singing Blue Jay American Crow Tree Swallow Barn Swallow Blue-gray Gnatcatcher American Robin Gray Catbird Cedar Waxwing Pine Warbler, came close to sing for me Cerulean Warbler, singing Ovenbird, lots, singing Louisiana Waterthrush Common Yellowthroat, lots, singing Hooded Warbler, lots, singing Scarlet Tanager, 5 Eastern Towhee, singing Chipping Sparrow Song Sparrow Northern Cardinal Indigo Bunting Common Grackle Brown-headed Cowbird Baltimore Oriole Heard but not seen: Carolina Chickadee White-breasted Nuthatch Carolina Wren Wood Thrush Blue-winged Warbler Prairie Warbler Kentucky Warbler Here's a chuckle for readers. After I'd hiked the east loop of the Creekside Meadow Trail, I dared to try the uphill Cemetary Ridge Trail (I'm 64). I left at 11:30 thinking it wouldn't hurt me to have a late lunch. I carried my birding chair and guide but no water, to reduce weight. At long last I reached the end of the CR trail, only to have the Fern trail to complete before reaching the picnic area (not the one where my car was parked). I flagged down the first car that passed and begged a ride to the other parking area. It was 5:30 and I'd had no water nor lunch. I won't be hiking the Cemetary Ridge Trail again! And here's another chuckle. Today I made my first trip to the Crown City Wildlife Area. From Columbus via Rt. 23S to 35 out of Chillicothe to Rio Grande took two hours. It took another hour of curvy roads before I found myself in the actual wildlife area. I'd tried last year, without success, to locate the map recommended by Bob Royse. I had my DeLorme and the ODNR map from the internet. It really didn't matter what map I had, because I never saw one street sign all day long...not one! At least it was a sunny day, so I could keep track of my roamings by the sun. I heard lots of birds. Seeing them was quite another story. It was simply too hot to stay in the car very long with the sun beating down on it. If I left the engine on for the air conditioner, I couldn't hear the birds. I spent most of my time in the few shady spots I could find. On a brighter note, I found my target bird, a Blue Grosbeak, which had evaded me until today. Following are the birds I saw: Turkey Vulture Northern Harrier (surprising) Red-tailed Hawk American Kestrel Wild Turkey Mourning Dove Downy Woodpecker Northern Flicker Eastern Phoebe Eastern Kingbird Red-eyed Vireo American Crow Purple Martin (Amish yard outside area) Tree Swallow Barn Swallow Eastern Bluebird American Robin Northern Mockingbird Brown Thrasher Yellow Warbler, 1 Common Yellowthroat, lots Yellow-breasted Chat, 1 Eastern Towhee Chipping Sparrow Grasshopper Sparrow, 3 Song Sparrow Blue Grosbeak, 1, posing low and singing Indigo Bunting, lots Red-winged Blackbird Eastern Meadowlark Common Grackle Orchard Oriole, 1 American Goldfinch Heard but not seen: Northern Bobwhite Shite-eyed Vireo Field Sparrow Henslow's Sparrow ____________________________________________________________________________________ Expecting? Get great news right away with email Auto-Check. Try the Yahoo! Mail Beta. http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/newmail_tools.html ______________________________________________________________________ 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]