Since OFO field trips have to be scheduled for publication in the late fall predicting the date migrating waterfowl will be present on flooded fields east of Ottawa is problematic. My choice of April 2nd turned out to be about a week early since, as reported by CTV News, "The capital is in the grip of a brief cold snap, and the temperature hit one of the lowest in decades. Environment Canada reported a temperature of -9.3 C at the Ottawa airport at 7 a.m. Sunday making it the coldest April 2 since 1982, when the low was -8.9 C. The coldest temperature on record for Ottawa on April 2 is -15.6 C, set in 1911." Gusting winds resulted in a wind chill of about -18 C. There were some flooded fields at Bearbrook Creek on Frank Kenney Rd but none on Milton Rd and none at Cobbs Lake Creek east of Bourget. Twenty-Five hardy birders found: Species Count Canada Goose 1000 Tundra Swan 7 Wood Duck 4 Mallard 3 American Black Duck 1 Hooded Merganser 1 Common Merganser 2 Wild Turkey 23 Gray Partridge 3 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) 1 Sandhill Crane 9 Killdeer 4 Ring-billed Gull 3 Great Blue Heron 1 Turkey Vulture 5 Bald Eagle 1 Red-tailed Hawk 1 Blue Jay 1 American Crow 10 Common Raven 2 Black-capped Chickadee 1 Horned Lark 2 White-breasted Nuthatch 1 European Starling 15 American Robin 12 House Sparrow 1 Song Sparrow 2 Red-winged Blackbird 20 Common Grackle 25 Northern Cardinal 1 Domestic goose sp. (Domestic type) 1 Thanks to Bernie Ladouceur for co-leading the trip. Special thanks to Colin Gaskell for his assistance during the trip and for getting us on three distant Gray Partridge (east side of the Frank Kenney Rd Bearbrook Creek bridge) and Janet McCullough for skillfully leading our field trip convoy. Cheers, Bob