Hoover Reservoir, Area M Mudflats and Area N, Delaware County I spent much of today cleaning my nest boxes at the Hoover Nature Preserve. With the water level at 13 feet below normal all sorts of critters are discovering the nest boxes. The most common have been deer mice and little brown bats. If you want an indignant look just accidentally drop a little brown bat in the mud. I used a stick it could grip to lift it and put it back in the box. I think it’s their version of Holiday Express before they hibernate. But the best comedy routine for the day was a deer mouse that leaped out of a box when I lifted the swing side. It alit on the ground and ran into my backpack holding my tools. I tried to convince it to come out with gentle taps on the side of the backpack but it kept huddling and looking back with big eyes. I finally had to resort to using the shaped clothes hanger I use to extract old nests from the nest boxes. It was like using the shepherd’s crook in a vaudeville show to remove a bad act from the stage. After I got it out of the backpack it froze in place, probably thought it was dinner, then it ran for cover with a feet don’t fail me now dash. This all occurred in the area between the Area M boardwalk and the old road in Area N. The mudflats there did have some decent activity, the best being a flock of about 65 Dunlin. I also observed a lone Red Knot and a group of about 15 or 16 Pectoral Sandpipers. Later I ventured into Area N to install 6 new nest boxes closer to the road to hopefully attract Prothonotary Warblers to where visitors can get good looks at them next spring. Charlie Bombaci Hoover Nature Preserve Species seen in Areas M and N in the forest area and the mudflats: Canada Goose American Black Duck Mallard Double-crested Cormorant Great Blue Heron Great Egret (only 1) Turkey Vulture Osprey (1 immature) Red-tailed Hawk Killdeer (many) RED KNOT (1 individual) Pectoral Sandpiper (15-16) DUNLIN (65) Bonaparte’s Gull Ring-billed Gull Herring Gull Mourning Dove Great Horned Owl Red-headed Woodpecker (4) Red-bellied Woodpecker Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (2) Downy Woodpecker Pileated Woodpecker Eastern Phoebe Blue Jay American Crow Horned Lark Tree Swallow (just a few) Carolina Chickadee Tufted Titmouse White-breasted Nuthatch Brown Creeper Carolina Wren Winter Wren Golden-crowned Kinglet Ruby-crowned Kinglet Eastern Bluebird Hermit Thrush American Robin Gray Catbird (2) European Starling American Pipit Cedar Waxwing Yellow-rumped Warbler Song Sparrow Swamp Sparrow White-throated Sparrow Dark-eyed Junco Northern Cardinal Red-winged Blackbird Rusty Blackbird Common Grackle American Goldfinch ______________________________________________________________________ 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]