Today was another incredible day with lots of great birds. The sighting of the day was a merlin. I saw a small falcon flying out over the lake and it was joined by a second merlin. They were chasing a swallow. I got it in my scope and it was a single cave swallow. The swallow was zigzagging in the wind with both merlins diving at it. I finally saw the swallow and one merlin disappear behind a large wave. The merlin flew up and headed back to shore. I did not see the swallow in its talons so I looked back. The swallow was again flying with the second merlin chasing it. They both disappeared behind trees and I don't know the final outcome. I am guessing the merlins were somewhere along the shoreline waiting for small birds to fly by. I don't imagine they saw a lot in this wind. This spring I watched a merlin along the shoreline head into a swallow flock that was out over the lake. Other good birds were 279 brant. All observed early and all heading west. Later in the morning when the rain stopped there was a nice flight of common loons. I also had a single red-throated low over the lake. Most of the commons were high. For some reason almost every red-throated is low. I also counted 3 red-necked grebes. Also of interest were 4 pomarine jaegers, all heading west with the Bonaparte's gulls. They seemed to have no desire to harass the gulls and the gulls were not paying too much attention to them. There were over 2,000 Bonaparte's gulls heading west. With them I had a young Sabine's, a young Franklin's, and 2 little gulls. One of the little gulls was a 1st cycle, the other an adult. Every day has been great since Saturday. It is evident that a lot of these birds have settled down on Lake Erie for the time being. It is really worth trying to make time to get out to the lake in the next few days. Lakeshore Waterbird Survey Lakeshore Reservation, North Perry, Lake County October 30, 2012, 0745-1200 Weather- cloudy with rain, Wind- NW 30-40+ Temperature 46-47 F, Barometer- 29.19-29.20 Humidity- 95-93, dew point- 44-47 Waves- 15-18 feet, Direction- west BRANT 279 American black duck 3 Mallard 18 Lesser scaup 156 Scaup spp. 340 SURF SCOTER 1 WHITE-WINGED SCOTER 6 BLACK SCOTER 4 Bufflehead 17 Red-breasted merganser 337 RED-THROATED LOON 1 Common loon 377 RED-NECKED GREBE 3 Double-crested cormorant 8 MERLIN 2 POMARINE JAEGER 4 FRANKLIN'S GULL 1 (1st cycle) LITTLE GULL 2 (1 adult and 1- 1st cycle) Bonaparte's gull 2,140 Ring-billed gull 287 Herring gull 340 LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL 1 (1adult) Great black-backed gull 3 SABINE'S GULL 1 (1st cycle) CAVE SWALLOW 1 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]