The Western Hamilton County CBC was held Sunday, December 22. We had mostly cloudy weather, with temperatures in the 50s, and fortunately missed the heavy rain that we had Saturday. That rain, however, resulted in heavy flooding of the Great Miami River, which kept us out of the normally productive river bottoms. 43 participants found a total of 88 species, which is about average. We had 16 species of waterfowl, which is a little more than average, We had record high counts for Cackling Goose (5), Canada Goose (4994), Ring-necked Duck (286), and Hooded Merganser (16). We also set record highs for Pied-billed Grebe (11, tie) Black Vulture (26), Bald Eagle (6, tie), Short-eared Owl (2, tie), Eastern Phoebe (2, tie), Red-winged Blackbird (622), Rusty Blackbird (661, previous high 70), Common Grackle (16,454, previous high 4203), and Brown-headed Cowbird (2,750, previous high 443). We found zero Sandhill Cranes, compared to 3,205 last year - the big push was a couple of weeks later than usual last year. Winter irruptives were also missing - no crossbills or Pine Siskins, and only three Red-breasted Nuthatches. -- Ned Keller ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]