A few other ideas for branching out into new or otherwise underbirded areas (courtesy of eBird): 1. Visit underbirded counties: Here is a map I made a while ago showing the number of eBird checklists by county (as of 2009) http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauljhurtado/5662560328/ For more details on "county birding" for eBird http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/county_birding 2. Bird random locations: If you use ebird, see the link above for details on conducting random counts -- which help collect data from areas with poor coverage. Otherwise, you can get creative and come up with additional ways to add some randomness to your outings (e.g. spin a bottle and spend the day birding in a random direction from home -- highly recommended for central Ohio birders!). Most importantly, have fun! :) Good birding, Paul Hurtado ______________________________________________________________________ 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]