I was checking the Melvin Stone quarry pond just before sunset and found what I believe to be a Common Shelduck. I am very familiar with this bird from my years living in England. Details below. It was too late for photography. I tried to digiscope it, but the shutter speed were just too slow. The principal question in my mind is whether this bird is an escape. It is my impression that shelducks are fairly commonly collected by waterfowl fanciers and used as ornamentals. I know that several members of this list have contacts in that world. Perhaps they could check to see if someone is missing a shelduck. The bird was very large, at least half again as large as the mallards it was swimming with. It had a large profile, like a Spanish galleon as opposed to a clipper ship, with a long, almost goose-like neck. On the water it showed a great deal of white: lower part of the neck, breast and flanks clear back to the tail, interrupted only by wide dark back just forward of the bend of the wing. In good light, this band should have been rich chestnut, like the side of a shoveler, but the light wasn't good enough to distinguish any color. Similarly, the head and nest were also just "dark" rather than bottle green. The same was true of the heads of the mallards. The scapulars were dark and there were two white "backpack straps" on the back. The bill was large, bright orange, with no knob, indicating that the bird was a female, (a shelduck, rather than a sheldrake). There was a small indistinct white patch in the feathering at the base of the bill. No interesting behavior was observed; the bird was just swimming around with the mallards. Otherwise on Melvin, there were a couple hundred Canada Geese, about twice as many Mallards, 20-3- American Black Ducks, 5 Northern Pintails. Amongst the Canadas, I was able to single out two individuals I can confidently call Cackling Geese. Here is an interactive map giving the location and some caveats about birding at Melvin Stone. http://tinyurl.com/MelvinStone Cheers, Bob -- Robert D Powell Wilmington, OH, USA [log in to unmask] http://rdp1710.wordpress.com Nulla dies sine linea ______________________________________________________________________ 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]