Had a lovely morning walk at the Whittier today. I posted a full e-bird generated list is at the end of this e-mail, but the highlights included first of season (for the area for me) eastern towhees, tree swallows, field sparrows (39!), chipping sparrows (19!), and red-winged blackbirds. Was also happy to see 5 yellow-bellied sapsuckers, 4 yellow-rumped warblers (was hoping for a yellow-throat, but soon enough...) and a slew of flickers. A few b. creepers, juncos, and white-throated sparrows are still hanging around, but probably not for long. The ducks & gulls have pretty much cleared out. As a side note, I was lucky enough to observe a yellow-bellied sapsucker at my home in Worthignton for three days straight. I get them every spring and fall and they gravitate towards the shagbark hickories (hundreds of well holes). After the flurry of big-year birding last year it was nice to just spend a few hours observing one species (a brilliant male that spent the entire time on one hickory, drilling a few new wells, and periodically visiting the old ones to drink up). Really cool birds. I was curious if the same birds visit my backyard each season (they seem to know to go to the same favorite 3 trees!). Also, for those of you who work or visit downtown Columbus be sure to "look up" for the peregrine falcons! I was able to view some spectacular flying over the past few days, perhaps some type of courtship displays? e-bird list Location: Scioto Audubon Metro Park--Lower Scioto Park Observation date: 4/7/10 Number of species: 31 Canada Goose 14 Mallard 4 Ring-necked Duck 1 Double-crested Cormorant 6 Great Blue Heron 2 Turkey Vulture 2 Cooper's Hawk 2 Killdeer 2 Mourning Dove 4 Belted Kingfisher 1 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 5 Downy Woodpecker 3 Northern Flicker 6 American Crow 5 Tree Swallow 10 Carolina Chickadee 7 Brown Creeper 2 American Robin 25 European Starling 15 Yellow-rumped Warbler 4 Eastern Towhee 2 Chipping Sparrow 19 Field Sparrow 39 Song Sparrow 20 White-throated Sparrow 12 Dark-eyed Junco 7 Northern Cardinal 16 Red-winged Blackbird 8 Common Grackle 23 Brown-headed Cowbird 16 American Goldfinch 20 This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org) ______________________________________________________________________ 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]