This afternoon Linda and I made a quick sweep of Hoover Reservoir. I was sitting at the computer working on preparations for the Hoover Reservoir Christmas Bird Count (Saturday, December 17, 2011) when Linda shook my car keys next to my ear. With the sun out for a change and cabin fever in the wings, I put up little resistance to this idea. We started at Oxbow Road where we observed nice rafts of Hooded Merganser, Ruddy Duck and Redhead. A conservative estimate is 250+ Hooded Merganser, 150+ Ruddy Duck and 125+ Redhead. There were lesser numbers of Mallard and Bufflehead. Smaller amounts of Pied-billed Grebe, Horned Grebe and Common Loon were also present at Oxbow. Later we made quick stops at Dustin Road, Twin Bridges, Baldridge Boat Ramp, Maxtown Boat Ramp, and at the dam. There were small groups of waterfowl here and there on the lower portion of Hoover but the best activity was at the north end. The highlights of the lower part of Hoover were Common Loon with one group of 9 together, Horned Grebe with about 50 seen, Bonaparte’s Gulls and a possible Franklin’s Gull. I didn’t get a good enough look to make a positive call but the odd man out was definitely not a Bonaparte’s Gull. A list of species all seen follows. Charlie Bombaci SPECIES LIST Common Loon (37) Pied-billed Grebe (11) Horned Grebe (56) Double-crested Cormorant (2) Great Blue Heron Turkey Vulture Canada Goose Mallard Redhead (140) Bufflehead (3) Hooded Merganser (300+) Ruddy Duck (200+) Cooper's Hawk Red-tailed Hawk Bonaparte's Gull Ring-billed Gull Herring Gull Mourning Dove Belted Kingfisher Red-bellied Woodpecker Downy Woodpecker Blue Jay American Crow Horned Lark Carolina Chickadee Carolina Wren Eastern Bluebird American Robin Northern Mockingbird European Starling Yellow-rumped Warbler American Tree Sparrow Song Sparrow White-throated Sparrow Dark-eyed Junco Northern Cardinal American Goldfinch ______________________________________________________________________ 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]