Eleven of us poked around the mostly-frozen reservoirs, woods, and feeders in public areas with Creeky names--Caesar, Deer, and Darby--as well as the Melvin quarry pits yesterday. We had sixty mostly unremarkable mid-winter species during twelve hours of birding in six counties, ending with some short-eared owls at the Darby grasslands beginning at 5:33 pm (four minutes after sunset on a misty overcast day); my guess is you'll just freeze your tootsies standing around much before then to see this now-rare Franklin County species given the current sunset schedule. Oh yeah, the new bison enclosure and the vast expanse of wetland-to-come look fantastic. Of interest were 27 diurnal raptors of 9 species, missing among the commoner winter ones only peregrine falcons. At Melvin's ever-changing throngs we had XXXX Canada geese, 4-5 cackling geese, one greater white-fronted goose, and thirty-some snow geese, including maybe half "blues." The latter used to be by far the commoner form of snow geese in Ohio (ten thousand were seen over Columbus in one day in 1939, when Lou Campbell estimated the white form of the lesser Canada goose constituted only 7.5% of the migrants through Ohio), but the ratio seems very different today. Snow geese of either color remain pretty rare in mid-winter, especially down-state. Does anyone know if the Melvin quarry is kept so largely free of ice because it's spring-fed, or is it just a goose-powered thaw? Anyway, Melvin is worth visiting to test your powers of observation--even under demanding conditions (it's cold, and every so often all the birds will dread and rearrange themselves or leave entirely)--as you look for the odd birds in the acres of Canada geese. Linda picked out the white-fronted in the throng, even though it was snoozing with its distinctive soft parts entirely hidden, and Paul found some cacklers out in traffic that looked like a high-school corridor at class change. There was one alluring juvenile 'blue' goose, with a white eyering and bill base, but otherwise no white on the head; I see this one very seldom in Ohio, especially at this time of year, and wonder why. One more thing. Scanning large Canada goose flocks in winter will quickly disabuse the observer of the perception that mostly we have two sizes of this group--Canadas and cackling geese. Many observers know we get good migrant numbers of a James Bay form, B. canadensis interior, that are noticeably smaller and slenderer than the 'giant' Canadas B. c. maxima, but studying vast herds like Melvin's demonstrates there are decent numbers of still smaller geese. These look smaller than B. c. interior, but by no means as small as 'real' cackling geese, which--as I understand it--are uniformly little larger than mallards and conspicuously show an obviously daintier bill and forehead profile. There is a strong parallel with corresponding species pairs like snow vs. Ross's geese and greater vs. lesser white-fronted geese. If you have a copy of the Fall 2007 Ohio Cardinal, look at the photos of specimens on page 64. Too many smaller Branta geese are being called "cacklers" in my opinion, and we have a lot to learn about other forms, or at least sizes, in Ohio. Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ 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]