Yesterday evening (16 Mar) from 7:50 - 8:20 there were approximately 6,000 waterfowl in the southern portion of Delaware Wildlife Area (Delaware County). At 7:00 the marsh visible from Leonardsburg and Panhandle roads held ~1000 ducks. At dusk, ducks started congregating in the marsh from all directions. By 8:00 the marsh was practically one continuous raft of ducks. As the light faded a majority of these ducks flew over to Delaware Reservoir to spend the night. Because of the failing light and lack of a scope I was unable to get species counts. However, Scaup and Ring-necked Ducks were the most abundant. All of the expected species were present, except Canvasback, Common Goldeneye, and Common Merganser. 6,000 waterfowl is a conservative count, as there were many ducks tucked out of sight in corners and coves. It will be interesting to see how many moved on after a sunny day with south winds. Jack Stenger Ohio Wesleyan university [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]