Sean & all--- American golden-plovers appear in Ohio in March through May in their northbound migration. Their long swift passage is always a beautiful spectacle to witness. The numbers we see depend a lot on weather patterns, as their primary route passes mostly to our west. If we get a chance to see a lot of flocks, we can see them gaining their striking breeding plumage along the way. I do want to caution folks about using eBird as a one-stop shop for information about North American birds. Despite other claims you may hear, data on this source, useful as it is and increasingly will be, comes from a very narrow stream of information. You won't find out on eBird that there are plenty of April records for this species in Delaware and Franklin counties. There are also many records from these counties with much higher numbers. Observers in the western half of Ohio, naturally enough, have a better chance of seeing big flocks; my personal high was in excess of 5000 at Killdeer Plains, and there are many published Ohio records in the thousands. The record high for Franklin County, at least the one I know of, is 500+ on 4/18/1924 (see Pontius. F. D. 1924. The Golden Plover at Columbus, Ohio. Wilson Bulletin 36(2):97-98), and yes, this can be found without arising from one's chair at http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Wilson/v036n02/p0097-p0098.pdf . Mind you, I'm also confident there have been flocks in the thousands here that didn't get reported in another narrow stream of information, that afforded by the ornithological publications. I recommend to everyone interested in Ohio's birds getting a copy of Peterjohn's "The Birds of Ohio"; it is a bargain, and full of verified information derived from thousands of sources, mostly published; it should be your first stop before going to other sources. It has its errors and omissions, but there is currently no more convenient source of authoritative information. As for eBird, eager and talented observers like Sean will be adding to its data with each passing day, but for now I advise against making it one's primary source of information. Good birding to all, Bill Whan Columbus Sean Williams wrote: > Right here from my window at the Science Center, at exactly 5:30pm today, I > was browsing new cell phones (mine's broken) when out of the corner of my > eye I noticed a distance tight flock heading straight for me. The first > thing I thought was "cormorants," but it didn't take me long to realize that > I was far off. The birds were flying low, only ~200-300 ft above the ground. > They got close enough that I could now see that a third of the birds were > entirely black underneath (including the vent), a third still completely > buff, and another third spotted black. At this point I was 100% confident > that I was looking at 56 AMERICAN GOLDEN-PLOVERS. You could imagine how my > heart was racing and my legs were moving me into the air. They flew directly > over my building, headed straight west. I could even see the backs of some > were golden. Not only is this campus bird #173 for me, but as far as I can > tell on eBird, there were no previous April records for Delaware or Franklin > counties. Also, it's the highest count ever for these counties by 50 > individuals. I couldn't even call anyone because my stupid phone is broken! > > > Good birding, > > Sean > > > --- > Sean Williams, '11 > Undergraduate of Ornithology of Dr. Jed Burtt > Ohio Wesleyan University > HWCC 724 > Delaware, OH 43015 > 617-470-4094 ______________________________________________________________________ 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]