Hi everyone. We took advantage of the beautiful snowfall we had had and the cold weather, hoping to see a bunch of winter birds in Geauga. On Hayes Road, we figure the snow had buried the manure piles at the Amish farms, so just a few seed-eating birds. At one stop, another birder asked us if we had seen the Snowy Owl. In the years we have gone out to Hayes Road when the farms have been snow-covered, I've wondered why we have never seen a Snowy there. The habitat seems very good for them. When we got to the indicated spot, there were ten cars there--more cars of birders than we've ever seen there (One birder said, "It's like Magee Marsh"). Thanks to the other birders, we finally saw the Snowy--looked like an adult female, though it might have been a sub-adult. Here's what we saw on Hayes Rd and Peters Road: Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)—50 Red-tailed Hawk—1 Rough-legged Hawk—3 (2 light morph, one dark morph) Snowy Owl—1 American Kestrel—2 European Starling—30 Eastern Bluebird—10 House Sparrow—15 Snow Bunting—12 Dark-eyed Junc0—12 We then went to the famous sunflower patch on Soltis road (and thanks to the farmer who plants it). Getting to the farther reaches of the patch (where the birds mostly were) we were sorry we hadn't brought our snowshoes. We had few species, but lots of individuals: Rock Pigeon--20 Crow species (I assume American, but can't rule out Fish)—1 Horned Lark—we think there were hundreds. They were flying back and forth a lot, so I'm not confident about a specific count. I tried 200 on eBird, which didn't like the number, so I entered 100, but I think there were many more of them Snow Bunting—40 (very rough estimate, also lots of motion. No longspurs--the other two birders we saw there agreed on no longspurs, and confirmed our estimates of the numbers. At one moment the farmer went by in a tractor, and most of the buntings and larks flew in a terrific flock--a great thing to see. Best wishes, Steve Cagan Cuyahoga County -- -------------------------------------------- Steve Cagan, photographer [log in to unmask] www.stevecagan.com www.elchocomining.net https://stevecagan.smugmug.com/ http://socialdocumentary.net/photographer/stevecagan 216-932-2753 (USA) 311-799-4057 (Colombia) ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Please consider joining our Society, at www.ohiobirds.org/site/membership.php. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: listserv.miamioh.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]