Hi all, I met up with Cheryl Harner, and for part of the day, Rick Nirschl, and enjoyed some good birding on this nice, sunny day. We started at the Girdham Rd. sand barrens in the Oak Openings, Lucas County. Can't miss this interesting sand blowout; it is along the east side of Girdham Rd not too far south of Monclova Rd. There, the Clay-colored Sparrow reported by others was in fine tune, and was easily found along the road. We are nearly sure we saw its mate as well, but it was devilishly hard to pin her down for sure. No problems with the male. He sings his odd buzzy song from semi-prominent perches. If someone can devote the time early in the am, and could spend some time watching, I suspect that they might be able to pin down the pair down and perhaps find signs of nesting. There were also two Summer Tanagers singing there, and I heard the Blue Grosbeak a bit further to the south along Girdham Rd. Towards the end of the day, we visited the now-famous prairie slough near Bellevue that harbors the Black-necked Stilts. They didn't disappoint and we spent quite a bit of time watching them. There is no question they are nesting. A female was sitting in the field in the exact spot where Kenn Kaufman described it the other day. We also saw it come off the nest, forage by the water's edge for a while, then carefully make her way back to the nest, fiddle with the eggs - presumably - and resume her incubation. We also saw all four stilts at once. One was a loner, and stayed far off in the vegetation at the slough's south end. I couldn't tell what sex it was. At the same time, we had three birds in good view directly opposite us, and these were two males and one female - this is when she briefly left the nest. After a bit, one of the males, I'd assume the mate of the incubating female, drove the other hanger-on male off. There were definitely no chicks - stiltlets - with these birds, and it didn't look like any were with the loner at the end of the pond. It was nice to see Ruddy Ducks, American Coots, Pied-billed Grebes, Blue-winged Teal, and a number of Great Egrets there as well. Weren't many shorebirds in evidence, maybe 8 Lesser Yellowlegs, 1 Greater Yellowlegs, 1 Short-billed Dowitcher, and many Killdeer. With all the rain of late, this is a good time to appreciate our former prairie regions, like the remnant of the Castalia Prairie where these stilts are breeding. Driving back to Columbus on Routes 4 and 98, the black soil wet depressions in the agricultural fields are very obvious as one passes through the former wet prairie region of the Sandusky Plains a bit east of Marion. Jim Jim McCormac Columbus, Ohio Like nature? Visit my blog: http://jimmccormac.blogspot.com/ Like birds? Join the Ohio Ornithological Society: http://www.ohiobirds.org ______________________________________________________________________ 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]