Eleven of us from the Columbus area set out on an iffy search for common ravens in Fernwood State Forest. My advice remains not to try to find this area from the south: approach from the latitude of Steubenville and work your way south; existing maps are inaccurate elsewhere. Our plan was to watch for ravens in flight from the several very fine vistas along the SF road. On our last stop on the way out--around noon--after seeing little, we lucked into five or perhaps six ravens across the valley. They were distant, but accommodating enough to perch repeatedly for scope looks. We drove across the valley and chanced upon the flock lower down on the slope, standing on or moving across a lawn in a quiet residential setting 50 yds away. Quite aware of us, they quickly hid, and a fair amount of searching didn't find them again. But it appears the group is sticking fairly close to the nesting area. They seem to approach quiet human habitations, but are very wary up close. Others might have more luck looking earlier or later in the day. Anyway, everybody but me got a new bird for their Ohio lists. It's a birdy area, where we saw ~60 spp as we walked the road, including black-billed cuckoos in two places. We'll send in anything that might add to Scott's excellent OBBA coverage of the area. A stop on the way back at Harrison Co airport produced a couple of upland sandpipers, and other grassland birds like meadowlarks, bobolinks, grasshopper sparrows, etc. The SPs will not be along much longer, but if you go, do stop at the manager's office at the hangar and obey all their instructions; according to them some birders have been doing some dangerous stuff like driving on the runways, parking in the taxi lanes, etc. We found the SPs at the north end by walking uphill NW toward the fence along private property. We saw a lot of unexpectedly productive areas in this seldom-visited area. We are thinking about a day-long visit to Egypt Valley another time. A nighthawk is calling over the back yard now, a good end to a good day. 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]