Hi Guys, So I had a very exciting sighting tonight while driving from Dayton, OH to visit my sister in Morgantown, WV. As I was driving East on Rt 70, aprox a mile from exit 164, an all gray bird flushed from the trees alongside the highway, approximately 100 feet in front of my car. Since I was going about 70mph, I caught up to it in literally a second or two. For the next few seconds it was flying right alongside my car and I had a perfect profile view of it. Obviously, I had to focus on the road as well, but luckily there were no cars around me at this time, so I made sure to study the bird the best I could in the short time I had. I instantly knew this was not a pigeon or a dove, as the flight characteristics were just different than any pigeon or dove I had ever seen. Also the first and most shocking thing I noticed about the bird was that it appeared to be completely uniformly gray - all over it's body. Never before had I ever seen a bird this color. Let me also note that I have never seen a Mississippi Kite before and I am not too familiar at all with its field marks, but I have seen quite a few photos. Immediately after seeing the bird I screamed to myself,"MISSISSIPPI KITE!!!" I then grabbed my phone and immediately made a voice recording of everything I saw so that I wouldn't later try to convince myself I saw something i didnt see after looking at a picture in my Sibley field guide. Here is what I recorded, verbatim, on my iPhone immediately after seeing the bird (when I recorded this I wasn't thinking I was going to share my exact words with everyone, so disregard my poor grammar and use of certain words): "Exit 164 Norwich Rt 70east. Mississippi Kite! all gray underbody as well as all the parts of the upper body that I could see, and I believe it had a gray tail, or mostly gray tail that was squarish in shape with a straight edge, and it had a smallish head with what appeared to be a slight black mask (over the eyes), wing-beats were strong and quick and wings made a nice half circle shape on the downstroke, with the primaries extending out on the downstroke. It looked to be a little bit bigger than a pigeon. I would say body-wise, uh, maybe a few inches longer, and wings-wise maybe 4 inches longer, so I don't know if that maybe rules it out, but everything I could see it DEFINITLEY wasn't a pigeon. It was a perfect gray color, it was like gray as gray could be." It is interesting to note that in my recording, after describing the size of the bird, I suggest that my size description may rule out the possibility of the bird I saw being a MIKI, because it appeared to only be slightly larger than a pigeon. I said this because I was under the impression they were more the size of a Peregrine falcon. Keep in mind, I have never seen a MIKI before other than in photos, so I had no idea how big they were, but for some reason I just assumed they were Peregrine sized. Prior to today, I had never looked up what a MIKI's wing and body dimensions are. When I stopped a few exits later to grab a sandwich for dinner, I pulled out my Sibley guide from my backpack in the back seat and immediately looked to see how the size of a MIKI compares to that of a pigeon... And incredibly, my description was almost spot-on! I was quite excited and now convinced that I had just seen my first Mississippi Kite! And not only that, but this bird was number 400 on my life list! What a bird to get for my milestone sighting! Also, i can give you the exact, pinpoint location of the bird because it flushed from the trees right before a bridge that passed over the highway. After looking on google maps, i found the only bridge that is just before exit 164, and the street that is on that bridge is "Deerfield Rd/ Co Hwy 5" in South Zanesville, OH. Sorry for such a long email, but I just wanted to be as thorough as I could regarding this sighting. I hope everyone has a great weekend! Best Regards, David Bernstein Boston, MA DavidBBernstein at gmail ______________________________________________________________________ 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]