The lovely warm weather brought an influx of spring birds to the Mentor area. Best of all were LECONTE'S SPARROW (be still my beating heart!!) AMERICAN BITTERN PINE WARBLER The Pine Warbler was at Veteran's Park and was surely the prettiest, most colorful Pine Warbler I ever did see. It was very active near the parking lot, mouth full of tasty grubs. Also at Veteran's were the following ducks: A whole raft of Ruddies - one of the beautifully plumaged males even had its bright blue bill Blue-winged teal Ring-necked Lesser Scaup Lots of Buffleheads Mallards Coots Then there were Pied-billed and Horned Grebes, with the Horned in very colorful plumage, and the park's first Common Loon of the year. The Loon's green neck band was a gorgeous deep emerald in the sunlight, and its green head also shone to full advantage. Other birds in the area included: 2 No. Harriers 12 Green-winged Teal No. Shovelers Wood ducks Barn, Rough-winged and Tree Swallows Many Y-B Sapsuckers Fox and Swamp sparrows (singing) Winter wrens, Towhees and Hermit Thrushes continue to be prevalent Yellow-rumped Warblers An abundance of Snipe Red-breasted Nuthatches Yesterday, 4 Harlequin Ducks flew east just above the waves at Headlands Beach and Ray Hannikman had a Merlin. I am a very happy birder . . . . . Suzanne Wagner, Pepper Pike **************Planning your summer road trip? Check out AOL Travel Guides. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-guide/united-states?ncid=aoltrv00030000000016) ______________________________________________________________________ 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]