My birding day started out with the first bird at my feeders this morning being a PINE SISKIN - (also visited yesterday) This motivated me to make a quick visit to some of my favorite Licking Co. places, with the following results: T. J. Evans Park: Canada geese - many mallards - maybe 20 bufflehead - a single male ring-billed gulls - maybe 20 bald eagle - adult, probably female, based on size (No American coots today, although they have been reliable there all month.) a private gravel pit, viewable from a friend's farm, near St. Louisville: COMMON LOON - one - a new county bird for me Canada geese - 116 (I did a count, because there is occasionally a snow goose among the Canadas, and I didn't want to miss it. No luck.) on the same friend's farm: horned larks - about 15-20 Then on to Dawes Arboretum: the Dutch Fork Wetlands had MANY song sparrows, but no waterfowl. Along Licking Trail Rd. - red-tailed hawk a flock of about 12-15 common grackles a mixed flock of 8 blackbirds, having some red-winged blackbirds - I couldn't be sure of all the others. Dawes - main complex, including auto tour: white-breasted nuthatch eastern bluebirds American robins - in the hundreds, if not thousands northern mockingbird a flock of 50-70 European starlings many American crows At the feeders: three woodpecker species: downy red-bellied northern flicker four from the sparrow family: eastern towhee white-throated sparrow white-crowned sparrow (including one first winter) dark-eyed junco misc.: northern cardinal blue jay house finch American goldfinch house sparrows Returning through downtown Newark: rock pigeons All in all, a good birding morning, chilly with occasional spitting snow, but not particularly windy. Margaret Bowman Licking Co., OH ______________________________________________________________________ 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]