In days gone by, the best time to look for Smith's longspurs in Ohio was March and April; they were more rarely seen in fall. Still, because they do not overwinter in their high Arctic breeding grounds, they must pass north in spring if any are to appear in fall. Nearly all of their spring history in Ohio comes from Butler County and in southwestern Franklin County and counties adjacent. Nearly all those reports, some in the hundreds, came from a few observers familiar with its migratory habitats in spring. Western Ohio seems to be the eastern limit of its spring appearances in numbers. Many of its records along this eastern edge of its spring distribution have come from airports, sod farms, and other expanses of short green vegetation. There aren't all that many of these grassy habitats amid those vast stretches of barren agricultural lands. Observers farther west have learned to depend on these habitat types in spring, and we should, too. They seem to have persisted in the same numbers till the present day elsewhere, but possibly we are forgetting to look and listen in the right places here. 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]