This was our first day together birding with Bob & Sue and Andy so we decided to stay local. We birded a town park and reservoir near Collinsville and a nature trail, created as part of an industrial park, on our way north to our next overnight stop at Covington (more of that later). In all we saw over 50 species and added half a dozen new birds to our overall GABRaT ll list including: Eastern Phoebe, Lesser Scaup – probably the biggest surprise and, along with Pied-billed Grebe, the only two birds on the entire reservoir – White-breasted Nuthatch, Baltimore Oriole, American Goldfinch and Raven. After a great days birding we were looking forward to a relaxing evening at our lodgings – unfortunately the Quality Inn was anything but! It was truly awful and we checked out and found a new temporary residence. Moral of the story – don’t believe all you read on Trip Advisor! Still the evening meal in the nearby Mexican restaurant was excellent.