Nice weather yesterday and some encouraging reports from friends up that way persuaded some of us from Columbus to take a day to explore the shorebird migration in Erie and Sandusky counties. Here are some hints for others. The Huron River flats http://www.ohiobirds.org/birdingsites/showsite.php?Site_ID=64 ) had good, albeit distant, habitat. Morning viewing only here! Diversity was not great, but 75 lesser yellowlegs was nice, and the potential is good. Hundreds of very active swallow nests on the bridge. The Cedar Point chaussee was heavily traveled by amusement park folks, and the north breezes had the water up; this could be good with decent south winds, but other than a small larid roost nothing remarkable yesterday. Pipe Creek WA http://www.ohiobirds.org/birdingsites/showsite.php?Site_ID=104 is likely, knock on wood, to remain a worthwhile stop for a while. Unit C, the northeasternmost pie-segment of the marsh, is down far enough to allow shallows and mudflats, and we had decent numbers of migrant shorebirds, the best of them a white-rumped sandpiper; there are dowitchers, peeps, yellowlegs, pectorals, and the potential for many more. We met a friend who reported a reeve seen there a few days earlier. Might be best to start walking the perimeter counterclockwise from the SE corner of Unit C in the morning, or the other way in the afternoon. Not much visible along the E-W leg, though a bittern's been around there. We had eight snowy egrets in Unit D. Some cosmetic improvements to this site make it less of an adventure somehow. Medusa Marsh http://www.ohiobirds.org/birdingsites/showsite.php?Site_ID=17 had about a hundred egrets with the other regulars. Water was high, with only a few yellowlegs noted at the margins. Pickerel Creek WA http://www.ohiobirds.org/birdingsites/showsite.php?Site_ID=31 was the primo spot of the day. More enlightened management of this area makes it a necessary stop in the fall shorebird season, especially the impoundment next to the pumphouse along Rte 6 just east of the viewing platform. Walk the dike east at least 300 yards to see the birds here; scopes are necessary. The pump was working, and I hope the area was not being flooded; time will tell. Not many birds seem to be there when you first climb the dike, but we found hundreds upon walking and looking carefully. Here's the list: Killdeer: ~20 Am avocet: one Gtr yellowlegs: ~10 Lsr yellowlegs: ~60 Sol sandpiper: one Spotted sandpiper: three Semipalmated sandpiper: ~100 Least sandpiper: ~40 Pectoral sandpiper: ~25 Stilt sandpiper: ~30 Short-billed dowitcher: ~150 plus gulls, several flavors of terns All birds seemed to be adults in worn breeding plumage. There could have been odder species like western sandpipers or long-billed dowitchers mixed in, but the distance and the available time prevented us from checking them all. We blew an extra hour driving over for the Ottawa auto tour, with negligible results. I wonder if the Refuge ought to consider varying the tour route to take advantage of differing conditions through the year; yesterday it might have been better birding if a drawn-down impoundment and the east end of the Metzger dike had been included, rather than the same old thing. 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]