As I mentioned, no two days are the same. If you weren't comparing it with yesterday , today was very good. Comparing it with yesterday it was a big letdown. The ducks actually started to move around 8:50 as they did yesterday. Unfortunately so did the rain. When the rain picked up around 9:30 the birds died out. Of note was a flock of 4 red phalaropes that were just off-shore. I had all three scoters, only a small number today. There were a few more loons today. The real surprise for me though was watching two large swarms of birds way out on the lake heading north, They were small birds in a real tight flock. Unfortunately both flocks drifted onshore to the east where I was not able to get an identification on either flock. I have never seen large flocks of songbirds come directly over the lake. The flocks were of 70 and 120 birds. They may have been blackbirds or starlings. They were just too far. Lakeshore Waterbird Survey Lakeshore Reservation, North Perry, Lake County October 28, 2012, 0745-1045 Weather- cloudy with rain, Wind- NE 25-35 Temperature 45 F, Barometer- 30.07-30.08 Humidity- 86, dew point- 41-45 Waves- 5-8feet, Direction- east Gadwall 10 American wigeon 3 American black duck 4 Mallard 22 Green-winged teal 2 Redhead 2 Lesser scaup 682 SURF SCOTER 4 WHITE-WINGED SCOTER 11 BLACK SCOTER 1 Bufflehead 24 Red-breasted merganser 183 Common loon 24 Double-crested cormorant 49 Dunlin 21 RED PHALAROPE 4 Ring-billed gull 255 Herring gull 81 John Pogacnik 4765 Lockwood Road Perry, OH 44081 ______________________________________________________________________ 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]