The sharp cold front that pushed into central Ohio seems to have scoured out these 2 reservoirs, pushing out many of the interesting birds that were around last week without replacing them with much else.  I started at Alum Creek lake, visiting the Beach area, SummerRidge access, and the Cheshire causeway & boat launch.  The wind was stiff, and there were whitecaps on much of the lake, and landbirds were often more interesting than waterbirds.  At Hoover I stopped at Oxbow Island, Mudhen marsh, Sunbury causeway, and Maxtown & Walnut St. boat ramps, and it continued the trend seen at Alum, even though the water level was extremely low.  The interesting finds included:

Loons - 5 were around the lower reaches of Alum creek lake
cormorants - there were still 3 of them hanging out in the upper reaches of Hoover, north of Oxbow.
Waterfowl - hardly anything , with the notables being a small flock of Redhead off Oxbow Island
GreatBlueHerons - a cluster of 12 were in the bay south of Oxbow, possibly a migrating group
BaldEagle - 1 subadult flew south over SummerRidge access at Alum
Gulls - surprisingly scarce, with only small #s of Bonapartes and Ring-bills at each Lake
Kinglets - 2 Golden-crowns were in the woods north of the Visitor's Center at Alum
Yellow-rumpWarblers - surprisingly widespread, being at most stops; Mudhen led with 5
Field Sparrows - 2 were still hanging around in the scrubby fields near the Alum Lake Visitors Center
Tree Sparrows - 1-2 were at many different locations
Blackbirds - no Redwings, but a few small flocks of Grackles were flying south along the shore at Alum

______________________________________________________________________

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]