A correction to this previous post. The title should read 'Mar 09' and not 'Mar 08'. Apologies for any confusion - James Hi - My wife Angie and I visited a couple spots along Maumee Bay yesterday morning to look for waterfowl and any other early migrants. The strong, 20+ mph northwestern winds made viewing difficult (and unpleasant), concealing many ducks among the ebb and flow of the bay's small whitecaps. However, the conditions did concentrate several large flotillas of ducks in the more secluded spots of the bay, particularly near the 'Bayshore' power plant, where we first stopped. The following is a brief summation of our sightings. The larger waterfowl numbers are conservative estimates only, derived from counting groups of twenty. Maumee Bay (east of the power plant, near the Veteran's Park) American Black Duck 23 Greater Scaup 75 Lesser Scaup 130 Aythya spp. 200 (several large, unidentifiable enclaves further out in the bay) Common Goldeneye 215 (undercounted) Common Merganser 145 Following this stop, we made a brief made a brief driving excursion through Maumee Bay State Park. The highlights: Bufflehead 6 Hooded Merganser 2 (a male/female pair, with the male swallowing a crayfish whole) Great Blue Heron 1 Bald Eagle 2 (both sub-adults) Northern Harrier 1 Red-tailed Hawk 2 Rough-legged Hawk 1 Horned Lark 7 (all fly-overs, heading E/NE) Red-winged Blackbird 5 (all males, including one signing) All the larids we found at both locales were either Herring or Ring-billed, and we did not keep track of numbers for these. Good birding, James Cole Lucas Co. Please consider the environment before printing this email ________________________________ James Cole Ohio Bird Conservation Program Manager [log in to unmask] (419) 867-4025 (Phone) (419) 377-9708 (Mobile) (419) 867-8049 (Fax) nature.org <http://nature.org/> The Nature Conservancy Oak Openings Project Office Kitty Todd Nature Preserve 10420 Old State Line Rd. Swanton, OH 43558 ______________________________________________________________________ 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]