Today, standing out amid the innumerable reports of personal first-of-season migrants, feeder birds, and ebirdish lists of routinely expected species, was Jim Fry's report of 83 willets at Lake Logan in Hocking County. As far as I know, 83 willets is a state record for Ohio for a single sighting at any season. It occurred far from the shorebird Meccas of Ohio (such as they now are), along the shore of an artificial lake in hilly country. Numbers of migrant willets, especially in spring, have been increasing in Ohio over the past few years: a total of 84 were reported from various locations statewide last spring, and the previous high count, of 57, came from an inland beach--Caesar Creek Lake--in 2006, and we had several flocks exceeding 30, all inland, in the spring of 2005. Fall flocks tend to be much smaller. Are willet populations skyrocketing? I doubt it. Are we in Ohio providing more shorebird habitat than previously? No way. Are new climatic conditions favoring migration routes through Ohio? If so, why not for any number of other related species? The same response applies to assertions that we just have more observers in the field than we used to. It's a puzzle, but in the meantime such large flocks of shorebirds are a treat, and worth looking for far south of Lake Erie. Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ 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]