Today I was joined by Jim Fry. We began with a stop at Highbanks Metro Park looking for Summer Tanagers. The males were heard singing in the tree canopy but refused to cooperate and show themselves, however when we were just about to give up a female dropped down and foraged near us. We got decent views of her before she moved on. The Summer tanagers have been staying near the nature center. We moved on to the Hoover Nature Preserve where we birded in areas where we could stay in the shade. There we stopped to visit the Ruby-throated Hummingbird as she continues to incubate her eggs. If my calculations are accurate the eggs should hatch this weekend. I’m hoping to observe her feeding the hatchlings next week. We checked several of the Prothonotary warbler nest sites and confirmed that many nests fledged during the past several days. We tried to locate the fledglings by observing the adults . I located just one today as the adult brought it food. Later we located a new nest site that I had not previously found. The adults were bringing food to the hatchlings and carrying off fecal sacs. On the way back home we added a “white water rat”, aka Mute Swan. As beautiful as these introduced birds are they are a bane to native waterfowl. They aren’t the best of neighbors to other water birds, often chasing them off, but worse, they destroy the food supply by their habits of tearing plants out by their roots. I consider them to be the British revenge for the American Revolution. Species of interest included: Yellow-billed Cuckoo Ruby-throated Hummingbird Pileated Woodpecker Cliff Swallow Wood Thrush Red-eyed Vireo Northern Parula Prothonotary Warbler Summer Tanager A quiet day. The birds knew to stay still and in the shade better than we did. Charlie Bombaci Hoover Nature Preserve Delorme 58C (2) & (3) ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. ______________________________________________________________________ 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]