While it has been a great danger elsewhere, all this rain has rarely risen above the level of a major nuisance in Ohio. Many birders continue to venture out into the daily downpour to look for the flashes of bright colors among the warblers, but allow me to recommend some attention to waterbirds as well. Here in central Ohio waterbirds have produced some surprises. A friend just wrote to tell me she'd found a first county nesting of hooded mergansers in a park wetland. Photos have been taken of another successful sandhill crane nesting at a local county metro park. At another park, large restored areas that were cornfields just last year have produced an astonishing list of marsh/shorebirds and waterfowl. It would be interesting to know how food for these birds is already apparently available despite 125 years of farming, the last few decades of which included potent insecticides, etc. Anyway, I suspect, and hope, that other parts of the state have some interesting waterbird phenomena for nonconformists who seek out birds of such habitats. An additional word about sandhill cranes. Our eastern population of these birds has experienced explosive growth over the past few years, with wintering populations moving farther north. This has encouraged several nearby states, prominently Tennessee and Kentucky, to propose allowing legal hunting of these birds. In both of these states organizations of birders have opposed this, and the final decision has yet to be made. I am not aware of any proposals of this kind for Ohio, but perhaps in the future... One respected organization, which has no policy against crane hunting, has weighed in on the Kentucky proposal, and in their opinion they mention the small Ohio populations. You can read their assessment of the KY hunting proposal at http://kyc4sandhillcranes.wordpress.com/kyfws-and-usfws-documents/ . Boots on, 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]