This afternoon I made a few stops at the northern basin of Hoover Reservoir (northeast of Columbus). With the extremely low water levels, much of this basin is mudflat or very shallow water. I stopped at the boardwalk at the northern end and saw almost no water birds amidst the miles of drying mudflat. Only after I stopped at Area I and walked out its stream channel to the basin did I see waterbirds. Lots of waterbirds! The list included: Canada Goose - 175 Hooded Merganser - 200 Lesser Scaup - 4 Redhead - 4 Pied-billed Grebe - 1 cormorant - 1 Ring-billed Gull - 200 Bonaparte's Gull - 120 Kildeer - 10 Dunlin - 3 The birds were scattered across miles of shallows, so that it looked like Chesapeake Bay or the Gulf Coast, except for the lack of herons. As a bonus, I could also see several large kettle of vultures returning to roost east of the Sunbury causeway, totaling 140 Turkey Vultures and 7 Black Vultures. ______________________________________________________________________ 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]