Seven of us visited certain Lake Erie spots yesterday, with lengthier stops at Huron, Lorain, Rocky River, and Eastlake. It was colder than forecast, but I managed to get a sunburn all the same. The best spot was Avon Lake, where thousands of gulls, many of them close by, included a surprisingly small percentage of ring-billeds. Four adult lesser black-backed gulls were present. The gulls at Huron were repeatedly spooked by gunfire, causing us to pass on a possible California gull that joined the rest of the larger species in shifting half a mile west. We, unlike others we heard about, at least were not threatened by hunters. The spectacle of the day was long steady skeins of red-breasted mergansers at Lorain, Rocky River, and Eastlake, nearly all speeding west (into the wind), offshore at distances as close as 100 yds (Eastlake) and as far as half a mile (Lorain). Having other fish to fry, none of us concentrated exclusively on these, so these numbers are conservative estimates, but I imagine in excess of 25 thousand passed Lorain in 45 min, 1500 at Rocky River in half an hour, and 12 thousand at Eastlake, where a flock of perhaps three thousand was in the water and a long skein was still passing when we left after 25 minutes. At Huron starting at dawn there were inconstant flocks passing well offshore, but my attention was intermittent and I won't estimate their numbers. If we'd had the leisure to do something systematic, we'd have watched at both Eastlake and Lorain starting at sun-up, set up a count protocol--as Vic pointed out, it's not hard to get a rough birds/minute rate and watch to make sure how constant it is--then counted at both sites till as long as we were sure westbound birds counted at Eastlake wouldn't have reached Lorain. Then the count could be continued at Eastlake--they were still going strong at 3 pm--until sundown. Actually, if the Lorain numbers had remained steady all yesterday, they might have reached a quarter million all by themselves. 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]