Ken Wrote:

"This is a cool and instructive record. In the past on this listserve, Vic
Fazio, Bill Whan, and others have mentioned the importance of knowing the
normal dates of occurrence of bird species: for one thing, a bird that shows
up at an unexpected season may turn out to be something unusual..."

I agree!  First arrival dates are an incredibly useful tool for noticing
unexpected birds AND for finding migrants that only briefly pass through the
state.

Does a list of spring arrival dates already exist for Ohio (or portions of
the state) somewhere online?  Here's a nice example (from western NY) of how
those occurrence dates can be shared as online resources, easily accessible
to anyone looking for them:

    http://www.birds.cornell.edu/cayugabirdclub/firstrecords.htm

If anyone has such a list, I'd encourage them to consider including it on
one of the Ohio birding websites.  An accessible list of spring and/or fall
arrival dates would be a great addition to the resources available to
birders in Ohio.

Good birding,
  Paul Hurtado
  Columbus, 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]