Hello all, About 10 people met at Trailside Museum in Glen Helen for an equinox bird walk yesterday evening. We walked the Talus Trail into the Glen, with a brief foyer over to the Raptor Center area and Baldwin Pond, before returning by way of the Yellow Springs Dam. It was a beautiful, temperate evening, the streams were running high, and there were hardly any birds to find. Still, we located 14 species, including: Canada geese (3 in flight) duck spp (in flight) Turkey vulture (approx 15 in flight, perhaps some repeats) Mourning dove (2) Yellow-bellied sapsucker (1 -- a new bird for our composite year list) Downy woodpecker (4) Pileated woodpecker (1 heard) American crow (2 in flight) Carolina chickadee (8) Tufted titmouse (5) White-breasted nuthatch (7) Carolina wren (3) American robin (2) Dark-eyed junco (6) Northern cardinal (7) For me, the most interesting bird of the day turned up when I returned home minutes before dark, and glanced towards the small pond in our backyard. Something bird-shaped caught my eye, and my first take based on size and color was an immature black-crowned night heron. But then I took a closer look. There, perched on the leaf litter, was a cooper's hawk. It waddled (who knew that hawks could waddle) around on top of the pond, standing on the leaf litter and lily stalks, drinking water every few moments. After about five minutes of being observed, it flew off. The bird was maybe 20 feet away from us, so the kids all got a great look at it. -Nick ------------------------------------ Nick Boutis, Executive Director Glen Helen Ecology Institute 405 Corry St. Yellow Springs, OH 45387 [log in to unmask] 937-769-1908 Support the Glen! Visit www.glenhelen.org to make your tax-deductible donation. ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]