Today was one of those days you want to start over and change the script. It began with an emergency visit at the vet’s with our cat. He’s 17 years young and like everyone else we are attached to our smallest family member. We rescued him back in 1993 when his old owner moved and simply abandoned him. Being a birder I immediately converted him to an indoor cat. He can bird watch through the window but the only bird he gets to is chicken as a treat. Giving a cat medicine is somewhat like juggling while walking on water, you generally know who will win before the battle begins. The cat act caused me not to get out to monitor my Prothonotary Warblers until after lunch . With the water level going down significantly around the north end of Hoover Reservoir I was able to get to the backwater sections for the first time this season. I worked the recesses of Area N and along Big Walnut Creek and despite it being the afternoon the place was extremely active. The species observed is below for those who aren’t interested in a cross between Edgar Alan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock. My travels took me through mud, low water, over fallen trees and waist high nettle. I didn’t mind as I had activity everywhere until as I was going around a tree I stepped on a slippery exposed root and did something resembling a triple axel, greeted a tree trunk face first, caromed off it and came down on a smaller fallen tree. Of course it was of the hardwood variety. Tomorro w I’ll see if my eye doctor can salvage the pair of glasses I had on. My ego won’t do quite as well. My wife marveled at the tree identification pattern that runs from my forehead to my shin. My color by tomorrow will be attractive to Purple Finches. I think this rates as my top slip and fly maneuver in the 23 years I have been walking and wading here while working with the nest box trail. The cat had no compassion as he remembered getting his medicine. The good part now that I’ve covered the bad and the ugly. In the area I monitored this afternoon I observed 39 Prothonotary Warblers ( 31 males, 3 females and 5 fledglings). The other top finds included 6 Red-headed Woodpeckers, 6 Yellow-billed Cuckoos, Louisiana Waterthrush feeding fledglings, Yellow-throated , Northern Parula and Cerulean Warblers carrying food , the resident pair of Brown Creepers, and Green Heron constructing a nest. Birds observed include: Double-crested Cormorant Great Blue Heron Green Heron Turkey Vulture Canada Goose Wood Duck Mallard Osprey Red-tailed Hawk Killdeer Spotted Sandpiper Mourning Dove Yellow-billed Cuckoo Great Horned Owl Ruby-throated Hummingbird Belted Kingfisher Red-headed Woodpecker Red-bellied Woodpecker Downy Woodpecker Hairy Woodpecker Northern Flicker Pileated Woodpecker Eastern Wood-Pewee Acadian Flycatcher Eastern Phoebe Great Crested Flycatcher Eastern Kingbird Warbling Vireo Red-eyed Vireo Blue Jay American Crow Tree Swallow Caroli na Chickadee Tufted Titmouse White-breasted Nuthatch Brown Creeper House Wren Blue-gray Gnatcatcher Wood Thrush American Robin Gray Catbird European Starling Cedar Waxwing Northern Parula Yellow Warbler Yellow-throated Warbler Cerulean Warbler Prothonotary Warbler Louisiana Waterthrush Song Sparrow Northern Cardinal Indigo Bunting Red-winged Blackbird Common Grackle Brown-headed Cowbird Baltimore Oriole American Goldfinch Charlie Bombaci Hoover Nature Preserve ______________________________________________________________________ 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]