Troy Shively's out atlasing, and just called to report finding a very vocal upland sandpiper. It's in a bean field on the south side of Van Ness Rd, .6 mi from Rte 4, old DeLorme 57 D-4 (very near corner of Madison/Union/Champaign counties and in Champaign, maybe 25 mi west of Columbus). There are no fence posts here for perching, but he saw the bird in flight. Sounds like it's unmated; times are tough for this species. For those properly equipped, the lat/long is N40.10228, W083.50446. This is a priority block, so if you visit please keep track of birds and breeding status and report to OBBAII. Troy heard northern bobwhites in this area, another vanishing grassland species. This probably is ancestral prairie: the Bigelow Prairie Preserve is about 4 mi to the east, and always worth a visit; it's on the DeLorme map. Note to newbies: the reason you're hearing all these reports of upland SP is not because they're common. They are rare and getting rarer. One of the reasons they're seen so often at airports is managers keep the grass at about the right height for them: mowing it too short just attracts starlings and Canada geese, and letting it get too long might attract evildoers like the notorious Laura Keene :). Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ 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]