Greetings! Yesterday morning I trekked out to The Wilds in Muskingum County. The recent spate of reports of Golden Eagles across the state helped me decide that if I was going to try for the bird at The Wilds, Sunday was the day. I arrived at The Wilds about 9am and was immediately greeted by a Northern Harrier harrying a Red-tailed Hawk. I didn't spend much time driving the roads since my goal was the eagle, but spent most of my 2.5 hours at the Jeffrey Point birding station. Jay Lehman showed up about 10:30, right when I first spotted the Golden Eagle cruising low across the face of the hill the Overlook visitors center is on. We lost sight of the bird for a while but then observed it catching a thermal and rising far up into the sky. Despite its height, we managed to keep track of it as it headed north, then rapidly descended and headed low across the fields perhaps no more than half a mile away, with a brief encounter with a Red-tailed Hawk (dwarfed by the eagle). This allowed for excellent looks at the bird as it headed back to the Overlook hill, crossing in front of us and showing its golden coloration on the wings and head, along with white in the base of the tail. Another treat was the Osprey on the nest platform in the lake below the birding station. Rough-legged Hawks are also still present and readily observable, and two American Kestrels rounded out the raptor list for 6 species. American Robins and Red-winged Blackbirds were ubiquitous. My complete list: Canada Goose:~300 Trumpeter Swan (residents): 5 Canvasback: 19 Ring-necked Duck: 71 Turkey Vulture: 14 Osprey: 1 Golden Eagle: 1 Northern Harrier: 6 Red-tailed Hawk: 5 Rough-legged Hawk: 7 (including 2 dark morph) American Kestrel: 2 Killdeer: 5 Blue Jay: 1 American Crow: 3 Eastern Bluebird: 1 American Robin: ~250 European Starling: 20 American Tree Sparrow: 17 Song Sparrow: 7 Dark-eyed Junco: 21 Northern Cardinal: 1 Red-winged Blackbird: ~300 Eastern Meadowlark: 10 To get to The Wilds, take SR 146 east out of Zanesville, take SR 284 southeast from Chandlersville, and look for the big "The Wilds" sign. Turn left on International Road once you are in the Wilds to get to the visitors center (not open in the winter). Good birding, Andy Sewell Columbus, Ohio _____ This mailbox protected from junk email by MailFrontier Desktop from MailFrontier, Inc. http://info.mailfrontier.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]