This afternoon Rick Asamoto, Shane Egleston, John Beatty and I went birding at Buck Creek SP. The weather was cold, rainy, and windy. The birding was fantastic. The highlights were the Red-throated Loon, Surf Scoter, Red-necked Grebe and Lesser Black-backed Gulls. The Red-throated Loon, Red-necked Grebe and Surf Scoter were all best seen from the trail along the reservoir below the visitor center. The Surf Scoter was the beautiful male that Jay Lehman described earlier in the week. We were less than 50 feet away from it and the skies had actually lightened up a little at this point to give us the best looks any of us have ever had of Surf Scoter in breeding plumage. It was actually back in a little sheltered cove heading out toward the reservoir when Shane located it. The Red-necked Grebe was straight out in the reservoir from the cove about 250-300 feet. It was resting most of the time making it difficult to ID. It raised its head frequently enough though that we got good looks for a positive ID. The Red-throated Loon was on the reservoir farther north of the cove. On the beach we observed a first-cycle Lesser Black-backed Gull. At the complete opposite end of the lake, at the mudflats off of Grant Rd, we found an adult breeding plumaged Lesser Black-backed Gull. Other birds seen at Buck Creek SP and Reid Park were: Canada Goose Blue-winged Teal American Wigeon Lesser Scaup Northern Shoveler (2 males and 1 female) Bufflehead Gadwall Mallard Red-breasted Merganser Ruddy Duck Coots Common Loon Horned Grebe DC Cormorant Killdeer Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs Herring and Ring-billed Gulls Tree Swallow E Meadowlark E Towhee (1 female) WB Nuthatch Cardinal Starling Flicker Downy Woodpecker Song Sparrow Turkey Vulture C Chickadee Robin John Habig 261 Lantis Dr. Carlisle, Ohio 45005 [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________________________ 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]