Hi birders: I went out looking for shorebirds today in northcentral Ohio. First I went to Pipe Creek Wildlife Area near Sandusky and birded there from 8:30-10:30am. On Pond B, there were lots of egrets and herons. Three immature little blue herons had been reported there yesterday and they were still there this morning. Others were great egrets (30+), snowy egrets (10+), GBH (10+), and one flyover immature black-crowned night heron. There were a few shorebirds including killdeer (15+), greater yellowlegs (1), lesser yellowlegs (4), least sandpiper (4-5), pectoral sandpiper (3), short-billed dowitcher (1) and one spotted sandpiper flushed along the bay trail walking in. There was one each Forester's and caspian tern flyover. There were 100+ bank swallows hovering over the water and the occasional barn swallow. Songbirds included one willow flycatcher calling, 5-10 kingbirds, several cedar waxwings and 5+ yellow warblers. In the afternoon (hot), I birded at Sandy Ridge Reservation from 3-5pm. For those of you who have not been there, this is a really good birding destination because there are three distinct habitats: a large native meadow area, a wet woods (better in the spring), and a large wetland area, which right now has a lot of shorebird habitat. Dickcissels had been reported from the meadow area for the last month or so, but the ranger there told me they left about a week ago. Thus, I missed them. In the meadow were a lot of immature meadowlarks and a few immature Baltimore orioles. The wetland had lots of great egrets, GBH and ducks (mallard, wood) and was very productive for shorebirds, including: killdeer (20+), semipalmated plover (1), both yellowlegs (20+ each), solitary (5+), least (15+), pectoral (10+). These were the ones I could ID with my scope, but there were even more further out. Both these locations are excellent for shorebirds now. Randy Rowe, Wooster ______________________________________________________________________ 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]