Hi all, Yesterday Both and I spent the day at Magee Marsh and Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. Obviously, like most birders in the Cleveland area, we have always looked forward to making a couple of trips out there during Spring migrations. But now we enjoy it even more because we feel we¹re participating in our small way in the Greatest Week activities. We can¹t spend much time out there, which we¹d like to, because unfortunately the birds don¹t consult us about when would be the most convenient time fro us for them to have their migrations. The thing about the Biggest Week, though, is not only the chance to see and interact with friends‹and with strangers‹about the birds and the environment. The work that has been done in that part of the state by the organizations we all (should) know and (should) support is clearly having an impact on opening the eyes of people who are not themselves birders to the value of the activity and of conservation efforts. Black Swamp Bird Observatory, and both the staff and supporters of Ottawa NWR and Magee Marsh/Crane Creek State Park are doing great work, and it¹s good to be able to salute them for it. Of course, we do actually spend the day birding‹although some people were complaining that things were slow at the Magee boardwalk, I suspect that¹s because we¹ve been spoiled by those great periods, like last Spring. It¹s true that the numbers of individual birds were pretty low in both places, but there was a nice variety of species. We didn¹t do as well at the ONWR monthly census, but then there were only two of us. Here¹s what we had: At Magee: Canada Goose Great Blue Heron Great Egret Bald Eagle American Woodcock Common Tern Eastern Screech-owl Great Horned Owl (owlets, really) Chimney Swift Red-bellied Woodpecker Downy Woodpecker Eastern Kingbird Blue-headed Vireo Warbling Vireo (this is one species we did see a lotof) Purple Martin Tree Swallow Barn Swallow Red-breasted Nuthatch House Wren Ruby-crowned Kinglet Swainson¹s Thrush (friends also saw Veery and Hermit Thrush, but we couldn¹t get Œem) American Robin Gray Catbird European Starling Tennessee Warbler Nashville Warbler Northern Parula Yellow Warbler Chestnut-sided Warbler Magnolia Warbler Black-throated Blue Warbler Blackburnian warbler Palm Warbler Black-and-white Warbler American Redstart Prothonotary Warbler Northern Waterthrush Common Yellowthroat Wilson¹s Warbler Song Sparrow Lincoln¹s Sparrow (!) Swamp Sparrow White-throated Sparrow White-crowned Sparrow Northern Cardinal Rose-breasted Grosbeak Red-winged Blackbird Common Grackle Brown-headed Cowbird Baltimore Oriole American Goldfinch Not bad‹friends also had Cerulean and Cape May Warblers, and Scarlet Tanager At Ottawa, we added the following (I¹m not listing birds we had already seen at Magee): Gadwall Mallard Blue-winged Teal Green-winged Teal Pied-billed Grebe Double-crested Cormorant Turkey Vulture Bald Eagle Common Moorhen American Coot Killdeer Greater Yellowlegs Dunlin Rock Pigeon Mourning Dove Northern Flicker Blue Jay Savannah Sparrow Best wishes‹good briding to all... Steve Cagan Cleveland Heights, Cuyahoga County -------------------------------------------- Steve Cagan, photographer [log in to unmask] € www.stevecagan.com www.pbase.com/stevecagan € www.stevecagan.blogspot.com 216-932-2753 (USA) ______________________________________________________________________ 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]