Greetings! I finally made it home. :-). I went from 81 to 92 for the month. I wanted to go from tip to tip today in search of shorebirds, and missing state birds. But I only made it to the bulge. :-D I tried to make it all the way to Oak Openings, or at least the Toledo containment ponds...but I hit the physical and daylight wall at Willow Point. Bird species started off slow, but slowly increased. I am thinking that my issue with an Ohio Avocet is that I am thinking like a human, and not a bird. And it pretty much bore out today with the birds I did find. It seemed the more secluded or tick infested the spot, the more shorebirds. I should have started in Toledo at the containment ponds...a place only birds and birders would go to, and worked my way along to the east. I too share Robert's concern with the Conneaut sand spit. It seems the port is more concerned with increasing the habitat for beach apes than for shore birds. Time will tell I guess. Looks like I need to make a trip to Big Island and maybe Lawrence Woods to finish the July 100. : -D Notes and links to the lists are below. I think I had 63 for the day. And I didn't want to create this huge list of lists, so if interested, just click on the link below to see full list. Conneaut: Eagles and Bank Swallows as thick as flies on.... :-) http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checkl <http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S19068782>ist?subID=S19068782 <http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S19068782> Headlands beach: couple of shorebirds, a sea of gulls, but there were more colonies of Beach Apes than bird species though. There were even one that obviously couldn't read the signs that said no sitting in the dune restoration area...he had to have a secluded sun bathing area I guess. It looked like he wasn't the first though. :-( http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S19069731 Wendy Park: Went looking all along the downtown waterfront for a pelican, didn't get one, not much else here. If a Northern Mockingbird hadn't popped out at the Volleyball courts, I probably wouldn't have even made a list. http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S19070699 Pipe Creek: Two Black-crowned Night Herons, and others. Was disturbing to have an airboat in the bay just outside the containment dikes. Nothing liked it...including my ears. http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S19072221 Willow Point: Shorebird numbers increasing. Lots of everything normal tonight. No rarities though. http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S19073042 Coasting in to Killdeer Plains at dusk, I went to the lake to check for anything there, and as I was setting up my scope, I had a Barred Owl call from both sides of the lake...nice! Nothing else of consequence except Tree, Bank, and Barn swallows as thick as the afore mentioned flies along pond 27...mostly Tree. Time to get a little rest, vacation is finally almost over. Happy Birding, and God Bless! Steve J. ______________________________________________________________________ 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.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]