With the windy conditions I thought Conneaut harbor might be worth checking today, so I headed out with Kathy Englander. The gate was open and you are now able to drive out to the sand spit again. There were a lot of gulls in the harbor. Only gull of note was an immature LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL. There were four species of terns including 5 BLACK TERNS. Not a lot of waterfowl moving but there were some good ones. I had 4 BRANT fly through the harbor heading west. They never stopped. Other waterfowl of note was a flyby SURF SCOTER and a LONG-TAILED DUCK. The only other ducks were mallard, lesser scaup and red-breasted merganser. There were a few shorebirds moving also. Of note were 4 AMERICAN AVOCETS that also flew through the harbor without stopping. Other shorebirds were 2 black-bellied plover, 1 golden plover, 1 spotted sandpiper, 30+ dunlin, and 1 semipalmated sandpiper. The winds got pretty bad and a lot of sand was blowing around. By the time I left, my dashboard had a coating of sand. 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]