I'm not a fish expert, but I would be surprised to find gizzard had at reservoirs such as Oberlin. I would think shad would be found in reservoirs where streams were dammed and shad had been present in the system previously. I have not heard of anyone stocking gizzard shad. When you get an extended period in the winter where snow covers the ice it often leads to fish kills. I think Bill is on the right track that these birds are from the east coast. I think that major storm a week or so ago the followed the coast may have pushed them inland. It seems to me there are a lot more glaucous, Iceland, and lesser black-backed gulls inland than what we get on the lake. One species I haven't seen mentioned except for at Oberlin is Thayer's. Its a bird you wouldn't find on the east coast. There is often a daily movement of gulls from the Lake Erie to Oberlin Reservoir and back every day. This could be where the Thayer's came from. The kittiwake on the other hand is a coastal species. It will be interesting to see if there is any gull movement along the lake this weekend. John Pogacnik _________________________________________________________________ Express your personality in color! Preview and select themes for HotmailŪ. http://www.windowslive-hotmail.com/LearnMore/personalize.aspx?ocid=TXT_MSGTX_WL_HM_express_032009#colortheme ______________________________________________________________________ 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]