...did some atlasing down in Scioto County this morning in the far northern portion of Shawnee State Forest (just south of Lombardsville and mainly from Forest Roads 1, 19, 4, & 6). What a gorgeous day! My main goal was to track down some of the Blue-headed Vireos that have recently been reported from this area. But before I get into that...many species are now in active OBBA2 safe dates right now. Any vocal or visual detections of these species are AUTOMATIC atlas data. If you have seen or heard any of the following, please let us know if you aren't already compiling them for the Atlas. They include: Ring-necked Pheasant Ruffed Grouse Wild Turkey Northern Bobwhite (as of yesterday) American Woodcock Rock Pigeon Great Horned Owl Barred Owl Eastern Screech-Owl Belted Kingfisher Red-bellied Woodpecker Downy Woodpecker Hairy Woodpecker Pileated Woodpecker Carolina Chickadee Black-capped Chickadee (as of yesterday) Tufted Titmouse Carolina Wren European Starling Northern Cardinal Common Grackle House Sparrow Blue-headed Vireos were all over this part of Shawnee. I did manage to locate a female carrying some cottony nesting material from the road and she was joined by a singing male. These birds were not shy and I followed them straight to their nest placed "vireo-style" in a clump of dead oak leaves only about 150 ft. from the road. During this Atlas so far, Blue-headed Vireo has been confirmed twice in Scioto County where it wasn't recorded during the 80s (it was detected just to the west in Adams County). Vireos were detected last year in courtship display in late-March in western Lawrence County. If you're birding in southern Ohio, keep your ears and eyes out for this species! Late-April and May will be a great time to get nesting confirmations for Blue-headed Vireo, at least in the southern part of Ohio. Good birding! Aaron Boone Columbus, Ohio 614-247-6458 ______________________________________________________________________ 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]