I took a drive into Ashtabula Harbor hoping to see what was around before the cold weather hits and freezes things up. Conneaut Harbor had a few ducks and gulls with some variety. The interesting birds here were a pair of dunlin. The mudflat is now gated off so I was scoping birds on the flats from across the harbor. I could see a couple shorebirds running around in the gull flock. From The distance I could not make them out, so I walked out to the flat. I had higher hopes, but they ended up being a pair of dunlin, still not bad for January. There was also a few great black-backs and one adult lesser black-backed gull. Waterfowl present were 3 pied-billed grebes, Canada geese, mallard, redhead, greater and lesser scaup, bufflehead, and all three species of mergansers. There was a flock of 45 snow buntings on the beach west of the flats. Ashtabula Harbor had almost no waterfowl. All that I saw were Canada geese and a few mallards. There were also a pair of cormorants. I had a few great black-backed gulls, but that was it for gull variety. There were a lot of ring-billed and a few herring gulls. I saw no Bonaparte's anywhere today. Just west of Ashtabula I had a black vulture moving east along the lakeshore. It was being harassed by a couple crows. Geneva State Park had no waterfowl and only great black-backed, herring, and ring-billed gulls. Of note there was a belted kingfisher and a red-headed woodpecker east of the marina. I was surprised at the lack of waterfowl everywhere I checked. Conneaut had a few and I saw a couple small red-breasted merganser flocks here and there. 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]