I took advantage of today's great weather to clean and do maintenance on my nest boxes at Mudhen Marsh. Bill Heck earned points galore as he joined me which made the job easier and faster. I managed to pay Bill back with some cooperative birds that decided to made timely appearances. There are 22 nest boxes in this area of my nest box trail. As we cleaned them we located 11 boxes with Prothonotary Warbler nests, 2 with Tree Swallow nests, 3 with House Wrens and a nest that was only partially built and we couldn't determine by what. That's a 50 percent occupancy rate by the Prothonotary Warblers, and an overall 77 usage rate. We cleaned all the boxes, replaced old screws with new ones for the flaps, gave a wood rustoleum coat to boxes in need, and remounted 2 boxes that had come down. A good mornings work. Bird activity in the area was overall slow as is to be expected at this time of the year, but what we saw was high in quality. We observed at least 3 Red-headed Woodpeckers, although with the movement there may have been 4; 4 Spotted Sandpipers; several Yellowlegs, we were too far away to call which sp; and what appeared to be a possible Pectoral Sandpiper; we loss count of the Green Herons that seemed to be everywhere, but the number was definitely double digits; 2 Blue-headed Vireos, and a Barred Owl. The other usual suspects were also around but didn't get our attention. The edge of the reservoir along this area is dropping and some mudflats are becoming exposed. We also met a pleasant couple from Worthington that were kayaking along the shore and enjoying the great weather this morning. 52 boxes done, 198 to go. Charlie Bombaci Hoover Nature Preserve **************Looking for a car that's sporty, fun and fits in your budget? Read reviews on AOL Autos. (http://autos.aol.com/cars-BMW-128-2008/expert-review?ncid=aolaut00050000000017 ) ______________________________________________________________________ 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]