On Tuesday, Denise Miller and I went over to the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge for an hour or so. We saw some real exciting birds and both the Orchard Oriole and Dickcissel were new birds for her. 1. Common Moorhen - we saw a female with 6 newly hatched chicks. Denise took lots of photos of them. They were so cute, all fuzzy black with red bills, red tops of their heads and wing area. We watched them for a long time. The little ones could fit into the palm of your hand! When the adult mom went about 20 feet away to feed, the young chicks would float real still together. When the mom would come back and feed her young they would race over to her. So cute!!! They were at the beginning of the road to the old visitor center on the right hand-side out to the edge of the cattails. The viewing was fantastic!!! 2. Dickcissel - we heard three males calling and found two of them in our scope. The yellow upper throats were brilliant along with the chestnut-colored wing patch. Their bills are very thick!! One was calling from a small oak tree, another from a tall plant stem, and one from the field edging of shrubs. The location is the field just west of the new parking lot near their new green visitor center. 3. Orchard Oriole - While scanning the field for the calling Dickcissel, we found at least two adult male Orchard Orioles feeding on the Canada thistle plants way back near the end of the field. The scope showed their deep brick red and jet black patterns nicely. 4. Field Sparrows - Sitting in the semi-newly planted Oak Trees in the same field. Nice pink bills! Happy birding everyone, Chris Knoll, Education Director Black Swamp Bird Observatory Christopher J. Knoll Education Director Black Swamp Bird Observatory 13551 West State Route 2 Oak Harbor, Ohio 43449 Phone: 419-898-4070 Fax: 419-898-1363 Visit us at: www.bsbobird.org www.ohioyoungbirders.org We are the proud sponsor of the Ohio Young Birders Club. ______________________________________________________________________ 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]