Being retired, we picked the last good daily forecast for the immediate future to go birding in Northwest Ohio, namely Friday, March 19th. The "we" being Paul Berrigan and myself. We birded from Maumee Bay State Park in the Toledo area to Sheldon Marsh east of Sandusky. In many ways a surprisingly unproductive day. We had 64 species and had to work for them. Typical March arrivals still hard to come by. For example we had no Great Egret, Bonaparte's Gull, Phoebe or Fox Sparrow despite being on high alert for them. On March 12th, Metzger Marsh was wall to wall waterfowl; seven days later they were basically gone. There were still some waterfowl concentrations to be found, notably the east end of Veller Road at Ottawa Refuge, Pickerel Creek on Highway 6 and at Pipe Creek on Sandusky Bay. So much for what we did not see. On to what some of what we saw: Tundra Swan--numbers down from seven days ago but still several hundred in the Ottawa Refuge/Magee Marsh/Metzger Marsh area. Blue-winged Teal--only 2; one at Veller Road; one at Pipe Creek. Northern Shoveler--the numbers up significantly in past week. Red-breasted Merganser--one male off beach at Crane Creek/Magee Marsh Pied-billed Grebe--2 at Metzger Marsh was it for the day Double-crested Cormorant--one at Pipe Creek Great Blue Heron--still in low numbers. Three at Pipe Creek was the biggest group Red-shouldered Hawk--the species was on the move today. We had five birds in flight from Maumee Bay State Park to Magee Marsh Coot--115 at Pipe Creek were the only ones we picked out. Sandhill Crane--one in flight over east end of Veller Road Greater Yellowlegs--2 in the morning on extensive flats on Toussaint Creek on Lemon Road east of Magee Marsh. Not there in afternoon. Woodcock--one seen along boardwalk at Crane Creek Tree Swallow--in numbers under five at various places from Maumee State Park to Pickerel Creek. Red-breasted Nuthatch--one at Sheldon Marsh Lapland Lonspur--a single bird feeding on the outer dike at Pipe Creek Eastern Meadowlark--one on Krause Road by Ottawa Refuge Rusty Blackbird--seen and heard at a number of locations but in numbers far below 15 years ago . Cheers, Karl Overman Farmington Hills, Michigan www.karloverman.com ______________________________________________________________________ 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]