I'll bet this is the first time a sighting has been headed up with those two species. Today around 1:15 I had a group of about 200 redpolls feeding in the alder trees along the cliff. About 40 of the birds flew over top my feeders. I was able to pick one very pale bird out of the group. After a while the group of 40 started to land on the ground around my feeders, including the pale bird. I was able to get it in my spotting scope and could easily tell it was a hoary redpoll. It had a very frosty back, very white below with fine streaking on the sides of the chest and finer flank streaking than the nearby commons. It also had a short conical "pushed-in" bill. As I was watching it a sparrow landed directly in front of the hoary. It had a distinct eye ring and that was all I saw as everything flew up. The hoary redpoll was not seen again. I saw the redpoll flock again around 2:30 but could not relocate the hoary. The redpolls were scattered in the alders so it probably was still there. The vesper sparrow did return and fed below that feeder off and on until 3:30. After that there have been few birds around. No photos of the hoary, yet, but I did get several of the vesper. This is only the second vesper sparrow I have seen in the yard, the first was in the early 1990s during spring migration. If the redpoll returns tomorrow, I'll make sure and post it. Photos of the vesper are available at: http://www.rarebird.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=7052 <http://www.rarebird.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=7052&PID=21424厰> &PID=21424厰 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]