I crossed paths with Irene at Sandy Ridge and would like to add one thing to her great post. Rusty blackbirds were everywhere there today. At one point a flock of well over 50 of them dropped out of the sky into two trees right in front of me and started squawking away. There were also several, in all stages of color, walking around in mud puddles just after the entrance to the woods. If you're looking for an opportunity to see and hear Rusties, this is the time and place for them. The biggest birding highlight of my day had nothing to do with Sandy Ridge, though. On my way home, I was on 90, near the border of Rocky River and Lakewood, and a wild turkey decided to cross the road. It just walked right out onto the highway in front of me. I slammed on the brakes, but it had no intention of speeding up until the very last minute, when it finally decided it would be a good idea to fly the rest of the way across the highway. Menwhile, someone behind me wasn't paying attention and only manged not to hit me because he or she snuck past me at full speed in he breakdown lane. Whew. I've often been warned, not exactly jokingly, that someday I'd get in a birding-related car accident, but I thought it would be a case of me staring into a tree, trying to figure out which kind of hawk was sitting there, and rear-ending someone, not me almost getting rear-ended because I didn't want to hit a bird! This is no April Fool's joke; it's a true story! Aaron Milenski Lakewood ______________________________________________________________________ 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]