I paid another visit to the SE corner of the Deer Creek Wildlife Area this morning. In addition to barrel loads of Swamp Sparrows and Song Sparrows there were 3 LE CONTE'S SPARROWS. One of them was ridiculously unwary, the other 2 less so. The one bird sat atop a cattail preening without a care in the world until it followed the other two into dense shoulder high grass to the east. The birds were near the S end of the eastern fork on the east side of the cattails. I didn't see any Nelson's today but there could have been some further N around the main southern pond. The two forks are now bone dry. I did flush an AMERICAN BITTERN on the S end of the pond while looking for Nelson's. The reservoir is now being drawn down and mudflats are appearing, better late than never. In addition to ~75 widely scattered Killdeers, the only other shorebirds so far present seem to be a small number of Dunlins. The fields in the northernmost part of the wildlife area are loaded with sparrows, although variety is limited. Song, White-crowned, and Field Sparrows are all abundant right now with some Swamps in the mix. Should anyone want a triple digit tally of White-crowneds right now, it wouldn't take a whole lot of time and effort to do so. American Tree Sparrows haven't begun to arrive yet from what I can tell. I did see a few Dark-eyed Juncos in the mix with White-throateds along the creek. If you have questions or need directions please check my Birding Guide to Deer Creek on my website : http://www.roysephotos.com/DeerCreek.html Bob Royse Robert Royse [log in to unmask] www.roysephotos.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 7614 (20121022) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com ______________________________________________________________________ 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]