A late report from last Saturday, July 13... I did some atlasing in my block 74D3NW in Cincinnati, concentrating on Embshoff Woods, a Hamilton County Park District property. Around 7:20 A.M., I spent nearly ten minutes watching a preening WHITE- THROATED SPARROW. I was able to do a sketch on a piece of scratch paper. Yellow lores, black and white striped crown, white throat patch, clear light gray breast, tan back and warm brown wings. There are no July records of White-throated Sparrow in the www.cincinnatibirds.com database, not surprisingly. There are records as late as June 29 and as early as August 4. There were two other recent SW Ohio reports of heard-only WTSPs on June 19 (Nine Mile Valley on Cincy's east side) and June 20 (Hamilton Riverside Natural Area in Hamilton, Ohio). I plan to submit the sketch and notes to the OBRC. The bird was seen alongside an access road that leads to a few radio towers at the edge of the park. It was about twenty feet up in a walnut tree, preening continuously and silently. After nearly ten minutes, it stopped preening, slipped up through the branches and flew back into the hillside trees. I did not see it when I went past the same spot a few hours later. I saw no behavior to indicate any nesting and the habitat is unlikely too... typical deciduous Cincinnati hillside with honeysuckle understory. Not sure why it thought to spend the summer in Cincinnati... were it me, I'd rather be enjoying some cool Upper Peninsula air. Trip List: Chimney Swift 4, Red-bellied Woodpecker 1, Downy Woodpecker 2, Eastern Phoebe 1, Great Crested Flycatcher 1, Red-eyed Vireo 3, Blue Jay 3, American Crow 5, Carolina Chickadee 10+, Tufted Titmouse 2, White-breasted Nuthatch 1, Carolina Wren 2, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 10+, Common Yellowthroat 1, Scarlet Tanager 1, Eastern Towhee 3, Song Sparrow 5, White-throated Sparrow 1, Northern Cardinal 5, Indigo Bunting 10+, Common Grackle 4, Brown-headed Cowbird 3, Baltimore Oriole 3, American Goldfinch 3 I also found a Wild Turkey feather (found footprints on CBC here two years ago) and a magnificent, large Eastern Box Turtle. Bill Zimmerman Cincinnati 74D3NW ______________________________________________________________________ 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]