With only part of the morning free, I focused on this corridor in southern Franklin County. The objective was to check several oak groves south of Grove City (Henceroth and Fryar Parks, Seeds & Burgett Roads), then visit some of the parkland along Darby Creek between Harrisburg and Darbydale, particularly the Pleasant Valley and Osprey Lake accesses of Battelle-Darby MetroPark. The hope was for early neotropicals, but the cool morning kept it to temperate migrants. Notables included: Waterfowl - little out of the ordinary other than a few Pied-billed Grebes in isolated ponds (Youngs Rd, Pleasant Valley, Osprey Lake) indicating some migration. Sapsuckers - only a few, with singles at Fryar Park and Pleasant Valley. Swallows - 16-20 Trees were buzzing around Pleasant Valley, while Osprey Lake had 2 FOS Rough-wings Kinglets - a few lingering Golden-crowns were at Henceroth and Fryar, while my FOS Ruby-crown was along Gay Rd near Harrisburg Thrashers - scarce near Grove City, but quite a few around Harrisburg; Pleasant Valley had 1 and Gay Rd had 2 song-dueling Larks, Pipits - Horned Larks were widespread, while Pipits were not: 2 of the latter were flying and landing in a field along Burgett Rd Warblers - hardly any, with only 5 Yellow-rumps at Osprey Lake Sparrows - singing Savannahs were at several locations along Youngs Rd, and a Vesper was singing along Burgett Rd. Both Field and Chipping Sparrows were abundant and widespread Blackbirds - 8-10 Rusty Blackbirds were calling and foraging in the oak woods along Burgett Rd. I was tipped off by watching them wade in roadside puddles; is there any other backbird that will do this? Finches - small groups of House Finches and of Goldfinches at several locations, but no Purple Finches or siskins ______________________________________________________________________ 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]