Sandy Tkach and I conducted the 15th February monthly census yesterday in periodic snow squalls with 21-24 degree temperatures. However, it was really a beautiful day with an above average survey. We had 46 species along the survey route and 16464 individuals. The 15 year average for February is 40 species with 5850 individuals. This was our highest count of individuals but over 4100 were unidentified diving ducks and gulls. The snow squalls made it difficult to identify many birds that were off shore. Much of the island was surrounded by ice with pockets of open water here and there. Four additional species were observed on the island but not along the survey route. They were Wild Turkey, Eastern Phoebe, House Finch, and American Goldfinch. Unfortunately, all the bird feeders along the route were empty. Pied-billed Grebe and Trumpeter Swan were new species for a February survey. Over the 15 years, 85 species of birds have been observed on the survey route. It also appeared that there was a migration of Northern Flickers going on. At one point in the north quarry, we had 26 flickers fly by in a NW direction in 5 minutes. Lee and Sandy Tkach had a lone Killdeer on the beach at the state park on Wednesday morning but it was nowhere to be found yesterday. 2 Trumpeter Swan 4 Gadwall 13 American Black Duck 49 Mallard 3 Mallard X American Black Duck hybrid 4 Redhead 28 Greater Scaup 345 Bufflehead 5151 Common Goldeneye 9 Hooded Merganser 3798 Common Merganser 731 Red-breasted Merganser 2900 Diving Duck * Wild Turkey 1 Pied-billed Grebe 13 Bald Eagle 1 Sharp-shinned Hawk 1 Cooper's Hawk 3 Red-tailed Hawk 415 Ring-billed Gull 1267 Herring Gull 4 Lesser Black-backed Gull 59 Great Black-backed Gull 1250 Gull species 3 Mourning Dove 4 Eastern Screech-Owl 1 Great Horned Owl 2 Red-bellied Woodpecker 26 Downy Woodpecker 39 Northern Flicker * Eastern Phoebe 2 Blue Jay 66 American Crow 4 Horned Lark 65 Black-capped Chickadee 1 Red-breasted Nuthatch 2 White-breasted Nuthatch 7 Brown Creeper 8 Carolina Wren 2 Winter Wren 3 Golden-crowned Kinglet 4 Hermit Thrush 1 American Robin 10 European Starling 33 Yellow-rumped Warbler 5 American Tree Sparrow 1 Song Sparrow 26 White-throated Sparrow 21 Dark-eyed Junco 63 Northern Cardinal * House Finch * American Goldfinch 14 House Sparrow 46 species 16464 individuals Unfortunately, the Townsend's Solitarie was nowhere to be found. Most of the fruit on the ornamental trees at the condos is gone. The bird could still be on the island but would take some time and effort to find it. -- H. Thomas Bartlett Tiffin, Ohio [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________________________ 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]