I spent 6 hours (9:30 am - 3:30 pm) at the Wilds and surrounding AEP lands today and had very low numbers and diversity of birds. In fact, probably the "slowest" day I have had in 10 years of birding the area. Still though - there were interesting things to see, including a personal record two Red-shouldered hawks each sitting atop large round hay bales - first time for that. Usually in this area a bird on a hay bale is a Harrier or Rough-legged hawk, but this time the compact but still chunky size of these hawks gave them away from a distance. Not a single Harrier all day.. Best bird of the day was a Green-winged teal, in my opinion. A list of birds of interest is below: Rough-legged Hawk - 6 (3 dark morph) Red-tailed Hawk - 6 American Kestrel - 4 Red-shouldered Hawk - 2 Great blue Heron - 1 Redhead - 2 Mallard - 18 Ring-necked Duck - 38 Green-winged Teal - 1 Canada Goose - 3 One last note: the coal haul roads around the Rural Dale/Prouty road complex are extremely muddy and rutted out this year. 4x4 (with generous clearance) was an absolute must. If it freezes up it will be much more hospitable. Glen Crippen Athens ______________________________________________________________________ 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]