I wondered to myself as I drove to the Hoover Resevoir near Galena, Willet still be there or Willet be gone by now? Two days late; I hadn't noticed the posts from the past couple of days. I'm not sure how I missed them, but Willet had been a sort of nemesis for me in Ohio, I needed it as a statebird. Luckily, as I exited the pines and emerged at the shoreline on the east shore (from the Yacht club trail) I quickly picked the lone bird out w/ my bino's. The Willet was close in and stuck to the inlet between the southward Peninsula and the nearshore. I watched him for a while and got some decent photos (which I'll try and post a link to on the forum). He seemed to be a Juvenile Western supsp. Willet from what I could tell, but I'm no expert on Willets. It was great to get a statebird that I've been a little overdo for. He was fun to watch and much more bold than the other shorebirds, he didn't spook at the dirt bikes that drove by. I got to see it flash those cool black-and-white flight feathers as he almost tripped on a darting killdeer. I also saw some other birds there including a Juv. Stilt Sandpiper. At the boardwalk there were some other birds, I saw the adult osprey bring the now-flying juvenile a fish. I also endured the usual questions from passers-by, whether I'd caught anything, whether I'd taken some good pictures or shots, some said there wasn't much to look at out there, and another teen asked if I was looking for Bigfoot. hmm, well I sure didn't find him, shucks. I'll settle for that Willet I guess ;-) List: Eastshore: Willet - 1 Stilt - 1 juv Greater Yellowlegs - 1 adult Lesser Yellowlegs - adults and juv. Solitary S.p. Spotted S.p etc. Boardwalk: Short-billed Dowitcher - 1 juv. Both Yellowlegs Pectoral S.p - 10+ Least S.P. - Juv. and worn breeding adults Semi-palmated S.p. - Molting adults and juvies Solitary Sandpipers Possible Baird's - looked like one but couldn't tell for sure at the great distance and bad light Spotted S.p. Killdeer Semi-palmated Plover - 15+ Great Blues Great Egret - 1 Belted Kingfisher -1 Osprey - 2 D.C. cormorants -2 Ringbilled gulls Mallards Bigfoot - no Good Birding! - Ben Warner ________________________________________________________________________ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at 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]