Paul Back in the early 80's I remember going to a marsh near Shilo that had singing Yellow Rails. I found a nest in the dark but it was cold so I left the immediate area quickly. I would have to go home and look in my records for perhaps the exact location. Local ABA members in Manitoba might better help you. A bit late for that but if you have the list of members, you could call them and they should be better equipped at providing this information. There might even be a guide to the birds of Manitoba by now. I know ABA did one for Churchill. Good luck. George >>> Paul Bystrak <pbystrak@dpnet.net> 05/28/99 12:12am >>> Not to be critical or anything, but Grinnell has 2 Ls and is only about 1100 miles from Oland Road, but you're right about the dickcissels, there are gobs of them everywhere around central Iowa right now. Linda and I went out to a small prairie east of Ames, IA last evening and there were about 5-6 singing males/acre. Also a nice colony of yellow-headed blackbirds and a lot of grasshopper and vesper sparrows. Shorebirds included several hudsonian godwits in breeding plummage along with dozens of golden plovers similarly outfitted. Plus dunlins, leasts, semi sands and plovers, spotted and killdeers. Strangely, there were no marsh or sedge wrens, both of which are common at some of the other prairies in the area. Each prairie seems to be a little different, probably because nearly all of them are manmade. Harrier marsh near Boone, Ia has breeding great-tailed grackles, probably the only one in central Iowa so blessed. We had a No. Mockingbird at Green-wing prairie, one of the very few records this far north. We were looking at LeConte's sparrows when it flew by. The local people were far more excited by the mockingbird. We are going to Winnipeg, MB this weekend to go birding. Anyone have any ideas of places to go around there? Would like to see breeding Baird's sparrows and yellow rails, both of which we missed in migration this spring. At 11:16 PM 5/27/99 -0400, you wrote: >I went to Oland Rd. today in an attempt to see a Dickcissel. No luck. >Last year, I stopped at Oland Rd. as I was heading west in June. I did >not see one until I was 1800 miles west of here in Grinnel, Iowa. > >Elliot Kirschbaum >Baltimore, MD USA >mailto:ekirschb@bcpl.net >