So I made it to the birdwalk this morning relatively ontime, even tho I slept in too much again. The BFEC (Brown Family Environmental Center, Kenyon College, Gambier OH) hosts these birdwalks weekly on Wed. Mornings at 8:00 and I am supposedly the leader, so I was a bit peeved to be late. Luckily there weren't any new people there so they knew the drill. I felt better to get out and see some wintery birds. My favorites were the FOX SPARROW, Golden-crowned Kinglets, Barred Owl, and Pileated Woodpecker. We hiked up the big hill past the created Prairie field to the pine grove in search of Saw-whet Owls. Didn't find any, but the Barred Owl was there. List: Fox Sparrow - 1, a beauty seen right behind the visitor center in the small row of trees beside the corn-field stubble White-Throated Sparrow - 10 sing-songing away weakly White-crowned Sparrow - 2 Field Sparrow - 5 D.E. Junco - 8+ Song Sparrow - 4 Swamp Sparrow - 4 seen in prairie field. Chipping Sparrow - 6 E. Towhee - 2 Am. Goldfinch House Finch White-breasted Nuthatch C. Chickadee T. Titmouse N. Cardinal Cedar Waxwings Eastern Bluebirds - 7 Am. Robin - 8 Blue Jay Am. Crow Carolina Wren - 2 Barred Owl - 1 Downy Woodpecker Northern Flicker - 2 Red-bellied Woodpecker - 4 Pileated Woodpecker - 1 Golden-crowned Kinglet - 8+ Yellow-rumped Warbler - 4 etc. So that was that shin-dig, pretty nice, yet cold morning to be out. Back home I saw my first of the fall male PURPLE FINCH at my very own feeders (I've seen females this fall but no male yet interestingly). This past weekend I'd been down at Heuston Woods/Acton Lake area and seen female Purple Finches again like I did a few weeks before. I also had both Kinglets and a lone OSPREY with a fish over the lake. Our Red-breasted Nuthatches are still feeding at our feeders, good times. Send me that Evening Grossbeak when you're done with it! Good Birding everyone, - Ben Warner BFEC The Brown Family Environmental Center 9781 Laymon Road, Gambier, Ohio 43022 phone: (740) 427-5050 ________________________________________________________________________ Email and AIM finally together. You've gotta check out free AOL Mail! - http://mail.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]