Today the intrepid four, Al La Sala, Darlene Sillick,Louise Sours and I, got loose for a day of birding. For various reasonsincluding my car being attacked by a Honda Civic, left me without a car so as achange Darlene was drafted to be our designated driver. We kicked the day offvisiting Matt in Westerville and enjoying the visiting Rufous/Anna Hummingbird.We’ll make the final call on this when Allen Chartier determines what thecorrect call is. Matt’s dog Bentley took to me as I was wearing my old collegesweatshirt that reads Bentley College. We next checked the activity at the Delaware WildlifeArea which proved to be a bust as we saw more hunters than birds. We did have ahot spot, a feeder at a house on Panhandler Road where we observed most of theusual feeder birds along with a Red-breasted Nuthatch. Not to give up thateasily we continued north to the Upper Sandusky Reservoir. Although numbers were low there was aninteresting variety of waterfowl including Ruddy Ducks, Bufflehead, HoodedMerganser, Gadwall and Pied-billed Grebe. Our next stop was Oak Hill Cemetery to look for crossbills. No luckthere. A quick lunch on the run and off to Killdeer Plains. Herethings began to pick up and get interesting. Right off we found some TundraSwans in the fields. We continued to the “traditional” pine grove where Ipulled our first rabbit out of the hat. I got Al and Leslie a lifer when Ilocated a Saw-whet Owl. This is the first one I’ve located at Killdeer Plains inthe last several years and it was very cooperative, sitting close to the trunkof a fir tree watching us watch it. After a short while it decided we weren’tall that interesting and it closed its eyes and went into sleep mode. Later Ifound a Short-eared Owl perch in a tree off T-108, and on the opposite side twoadult Bald Eagles. Then the SandhillCranes show opened the next act. Our count was 155 Sandhill Cranes. The TundraSwans topped that with our tally at about 400. We did not locate the scoters atthe Upland Reservoir but instead located a couple of Common Loons, Lesser Scaup,Ruddy Ducks and Bonaparte’s Gulls. Pond27 had 500+ Gadwall and a lesser number of Northern Shovelers to go along withthe Tundra Swans. Cruising the roads we located a multitude of Horned Larks and30-40 Lapland Longspurs, a few Rough-legged Hawks, Killdeer and lots ofAmerican tree Sparrows. Our overall list for the day: Common Loon Pied-billed Grebe Great Blue Heron Canada Goose Tundra Swan Gadwall American Black Duck Mallard Northern Shoveler Lesser Scaup Bufflehead Hooded Merganser Ruddy Duck Bald Eagle Northern Harrier Red-tailed Hawk Rough-leggedHawk American Kestrel SandhillCrane Killdeer Bonaparte's Gull Ring-billed Gull Rock Pigeon Mourning Dove Short-earedOwl NorthernSaw-whet Owl Rufus/AnnaHummingbird Belted Kingfisher Red-bellied Woodpecker Downy Woodpecker Northern Flicker Blue Jay American Crow Horned Lark Carolina Chickadee Tufted Titmouse Red-breastedNuthatch White-breasted Nuthatch American Robin Northern Mockingbird European Starling American Tree Sparrow Song Sparrow White-throated Sparrow Dark-eyed Junco LaplandLongspur Northern Cardinal Red-winged Blackbird Common Grackle Brown-headed Cowbird House Finch American Goldfinch House Sparrow Charlie Bombaci, for Al, Darlene, Louise and myself ______________________________________________________________________ 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]