Today my wife Linda, good friends Darlene Sillick and Leslie Sours, and I enjoyed a day of birding at Blackhand Gorge State Nature Preserve in Licking County. Many of the birds were cooperative and provided us with great views but then there are those stinkers that sing so close you can feel their breath but you cant sort them out of the foliage. After a while you just write these things off as part of the pastime of birding. Highlights were many throughout the day and choosing the best is impossible. We had multiple Cerulean Warblers sing as low as eye level with no obstructions to our view. Yellow-breasted Chats doing a sing off and flying across our path in the sunlight. One was especially bright, an orange that seemed to glow in the sunlight. Prairie Warblers perched on the end of a branch and serenading us. A male Cape May Warbler that sat and preened long enough to study every field mark. A male Ruby-throated Hummingbird doing its U flight mating display. And a switch that delights an old birder when a small opening in secondary growth produced a Blue-winged and a Golden-winged Warbler together and apparently interacting. The list today could go on and on as the birds decided it was a perfect day to act the way birders wish they would. Charlie, for Linda, Darlene, Leslie and myself Our list: Great Blue Heron Black Vulture Turkey Vulture Canada Goose Mallard Red-shouldered Hawk Broad-winged Hawk Red-tailed Hawk American Kestrel Mourning Dove Yellow-billed Cuckoo (heard) Chimney Swift Ruby-throated Hummingbird Red-bellied Woodpecker Downy Woodpecker Hairy Woodpecker Northern Flicker Pileated Woodpecker Eastern Wood-Pewee Acadian Flycatcher Least Flycatcher Eastern Phoebe Great Crested Flycatcher Eastern Kingbird White-eyed Vireo Warbling Vireo Philadelphia Vireo Red-eyed Vireo Blue Jay American Crow Tree Swallow Northern Rough-winged Swallow Barn Swallow Carolina Chickadee Tufted Titmouse White-breasted Nuthatch Brown Creeper Carolina Wren House Wren Blue-gray Gnatcatcher Eastern Bluebird Wood Thrush (heard) American Robin Gray Catbird Brown Thrasher European Starling Blue-winged Warbler Golden-winged Warbler Tennessee Warbler Nashville Warbler Northern Parula Yellow Warbler Cape May Warbler Yellow-rumped Warbler Black-throated Green Warbler Yellow-throated Warbler Prairie Warbler Cerulean Warbler Black-and-White Warbler Ovenbird (heard) Louisiana Waterthrush Common Yellowthroat Hooded Warbler (heard) Yellow-breasted Chat Summer Tanager (heard) Scarlet Tanager (heard) Eastern Towhee Chipping Sparrow Field Sparrow Song Sparrow Northern Cardinal Rose-breasted Grosbeak (heard) Indigo Bunting Red-winged Blackbird Common Grackle Brown-headed Cowbird Baltimore Oriole American Goldfinch *** Non-eligible species: Peacock [Linda wanted him to get some credit because he was so pretty][Resident of preserve neighbor's property] ______________________________________________________________________ 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]