Larry Gara and I went out to Cowan Lake State Park this afternoon to check out the waterfowl that have been reported over the last few days by him and others. We didn't find the Snow Geese or the white-fronts or the Red-necked Grebe reported today by Rick Asamoto, but we did find an adult female Surf Scoter. The bird was observed at fairly close range. We could see the chocolatey-brown overall color with mottled patches on the head, which bore the profile we associate with Surf Scoter. The bird flew and we could see that the secondaries were all dark. We spotted this bird at the South Shore Marina. From the beach we could see a nice collection of about 100 ducks, about half of which were Redheads, a quarter were ring-necks and the remainder Mallards, wigeon, pintail, and Bufflehead. These are unusual conditions at Cowan. In prevous years at this time the lake has been frozen over, or drawn way down, or both. Cheers, Bob -- Robert D Powell Wilmington, OH, USA [log in to unmask] http://rdp1710.wordpress.com Nulla dies sine linea ______________________________________________________________________ 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]