Greetings! If you are looking for a place to get your shorebirds down this weekend, without going all the way to the lake. Pond 27 will probably be your best bet in central Ohio. They have drawn the water down to about two, maybe three, inches at it's deepest, so there is lots of "shoreline" for the birds to be. Lots of everything normal for this time of year...except Dowitchers...weirdly. There has been HUNDREDS of birds to sort through at points along the front of the edge which is easy binocular range. The back edge is scope-able but there has been a lot of heat distortion so have fun with that. :-D There was an American Avocet that was spotted early last week, and gave good views to everyone for over a week, but as of yesterday, it has moved on. I looked for about an hour, with and without a scope, without any success. Blogged a little bit about it here: http://www.sjlarue.com/blog/2014/8/of-avocets-part-2 Without a scope I had: Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs Stilted Sandpipers Solitary Sandpipers Least Sandpipers Semipalmated Plovers Pectoral Sandpipers Semipalmated Sandpipers and of course Killdeer With a scope, whatever amount there were in front...were tripled. LOTS of birds along the back edges. :-D ____ Big Island has been less about Shorebirds and more about Wading birds. Egrets, Great Blues, have been hanging out all over the place. Least Bitterns have been hiding in the cat tails at the above ground pond that goes along where the old Hoch Rd roadbed used to be. That would be here: 40.587185, -83.237106 . They have been making calls like a Rail...or chicken...more of a clacking/cackling than their normal chuckle. I had both a Juvi and an adult, as well as a third that flew of into an area farther down the pond. They were spotted there again yesterday. Blogged a little about that here: http://www.sjlarue.com/blog/2014/8/where-are-you-i-cant-see-you Also Common Moorhen and Pied-billed Grebes have been all over the pond, and a marsh wren was singing along the north edge's bed of Cattails. Incidentally as I was walking the pond's East edge (along the telephone poles) I heard Sedge Wrens over in the wetland area to the East of the pond. So I walked along the edge of the ditch that runs along there and counted four. Three were singing back in the reeds, the fourth was working the ditch line. Also had a Henslow Sparrow back along the back (north) edge of the pond. Have a great weekend. 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]