Hi Folks, This is just a friendly reminder that this Saturday, December 17th, is the Oxford Christmas Bird Count hosted by Audubon Miami Valley! I definitely encourage you to get out and help count this weekend! I'll be participating in the Oxford count, but don't let that stop you from participating (I thought I'd better get that jab in there on myself before someone else did.) Seriously though, this year seems to be shaping up as an interesting birding year. One of my early predictions is that we'll see record numbers of Cooper's Hawks this year. I have seen numerous reports of Cooper's Hawks throughout the state this year (particularly in central Ohio), and I've already encountered more Cooper's hawks in the past month or two than I normally do in a single year. Additionally, most of the reports I've seen, and most of the individuals I've encountered, have been juvenile birds. It'll be interesting to see if my prediction is supported by the data. On a different note I was out birding at a couple of local (central Ohio) metroparks over the weekend. Glacier Ridge metropark, located northwest of Columbus off of US33 near Marysville, held little in the way of abundance but held a few interesting sightings. There was a pair of Red-tailed hawks hunting over the fields together. They seemed to be perching together and interacting pretty closely together, but not agonisticaly. Would this be a mating pair already? Preston & Beane, in the Birds of North America, suggest that nest building doesn't start until late February or early March for most birds, though there has been late December nest-building documented in Arizona...but that's a little different than Ohio in late December. In addition to the Red-tails there were one or two Northern Harriers hunting over the fields at Glacier Ridge. I've noticed there seems to be significantly fewer Harriers this year than in previous years. It was suggested at the OOS Raptor Seminar that this may be a result of a low abundance of vole prey species this year. I know a lot of vole research occurs at Miami U. and didn't know if anyone has heard of similarly low abundance of voles in the southwestern part of the state from any of the researchers there. This may also explain why there seems to be very few reports of short-eared owls (and long-eared owls) this year as well from the traditional sites (Killdeer Plains for example). This is just a perception so it will be interesting to see what kind of results are produced over the coming weeks from the Christmas Bird Count data. For more details and information about the Oxford Christmas Bird Count Download AMV's pdf newsletter: http://www.audubonmiamivalley.org/Newsletters/AMVnewsletterDec05.pdf If you're interested in checking out some photos I took while I was out birding this weekend feel free to visit: http://caseybirdphotos.blogspot.com/ I look forward to seeing you all out this weekend for another great Christmas Bird Count! Good Birding! Casey Columbus, OH