A forthcoming book on bird coloration, in the Nat'l Geo series, promises to be quite interesting: http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/ngs/browse/productDetail.jsp?productId=6200571&code=MR20380 The author is Geoff Hill, perhaps most familiar to birders as the Auburn University ornithologist responsible for the ivory-billed woodpecker search in the Florida panhandle: http://www.auburn.edu/academic/science_math/cosam/departments/biology/faculty/webpages/hill/ivorybill/index.html Ravens: a pair was discovered nesting in Queens, NY, in the greater New York City area, hardly a boreal wilderness. According to first-hand reports I have heard, it is indeed true that the ODNR allowed logging to take place at the locality of Jefferson County's raven nest, the first verified in the state in many decades. If these birds manage to nest again elsewhere, they probably have gotten started by now. If they don't, you know whom to blame. Shorebirds: the first American golden-plovers have been seen west of here on their migration north. These birds usually use the central flyway in the spring, but they can appear here then in numbers (I once saw ~5000 at Killdeer), but mostly when strong storms divert them eastward, something that might be happening over the next few days. Keep an eye out for them in fields, but don't expect big numbers for 2-3 weeks yet. We have already been seeing killdeers, snipes, woodcocks, as well as least sandpipers, which have apparently successfully wintered in Ohio, even in this severe season, along the Great Miami River again; a few used to tough it out at Buck Creek SP, but have not been recorded this year that I can recall. Dunlins too used to overwinter in the state once in a while, but apparently not this year. We've already had one tentative report of a (greater) yellowlegs, and pectoral sandpipers should show up soon. 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]