I birded several areas around Alum Creek Reservoir, as well as a new park just south of there (McCammon Creek), then drove over to parks along the Olentangy River valley (Seymour Woods, Smith Preserve, Sycamore Run, and Shale Hollow). Some scarce winter residents were not so scarce today, leading me to think the winter residents are already migrating north. Notables included: Waterfowl - surprisingly scarce, with only Mallards & Geese widespread. SummerRidge access on AlumCreek Lake did have some divers: Bufflehead and Common Goldeneye Shorebirds - 1 lonely Killdeer was in the spillway of the Alum Creek lake dam Gulls - small numbers of Ring-bills all along the east shore of the reservoir, along with a few Herring Gulls Vultures - a scrum of 12 Black Vultures was feeding on a carcass along Africa Rd just south of Cheshire Rd; 3 flew over the Cheshire boat ramp, probably to join their colleagues. Woodpeckers - nothing unusual, but did have Pileated drumming at both Seymour Woods and Shale Hollow Kinglets - had Golden-crowns in multiple locations, so they may be on the move HermitThrushes - 1 was at the Alum Creek Dam, while 2 more were at New Galena boat launch Mimids - a Mockingbird was at McCammon Creek, but even more unusual was a Catbird along the Alum Creek dam just west of Africa Rd Warblers - only Yellow-rumps, but they were regular in the successional forests along the east shore of Alum Creek Lake (where there is lots of poison ivy, not coincidentally) Sparrows - lots of small flocks of White-throats at many spots, so they might be moving. Tree Sparrows, on the other had, might be mostly gone, as I found only 1 (at Shale Hollow) ______________________________________________________________________ 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]