As John has stated, I too remember the massive flocks of mergansers from the 80's. Below are numbers of Red-breasted Merganser from my November census from Kelleys Island which has always been run between the 13th and the 21st since 1997: 1997 - 1500 1998 - 4100 1999 - 2907 2000 - 12923 2001 - 43 2002 - 10923 2003 - 5475 2004 - 181 2005 - 158 2006 - 19112 2007 - 271 2008 - 187 2009 - 68 13 year Average = 4448 indivudals This is just a snap-shot but numbers are nothing like the 80's. Still this year the "big" flocks have not appeared off Kelleys Island. I haven't observed 100+ this fall from the island. As you can see from the above data, three years of high counts may skew the numbers greatly or several years of low counts. Any way one looks at it, something has happened to the mergansers which migrate through Lake Erie. -- H. Thomas Bartlett Tiffin, Ohio [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]