Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2000 08:04:15 -0800 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Greg Miller Subject: Re: Extralimital Ecstasy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > Two Maryland birders score on the Yellow-nosed > Albatross! Ahh. I'm too hasty. The *other* Maryland birder was our own Phil Davis! Phil and I birded Somerset County on Friday on the way down and hit 6 different counties on Sunday on the way back. Much of Somerset was frozen over. Still, we ended the day with 80 species for the county. Had my first ever miss in Somerset for Bald Eagle (usually a gimme at several locations in Somerset). No Eurasian Wigeon, no Orange-crowned Warblers, no sharp-tailed sparrows, and no Sedge Wren. Here are some highlights: **American Bittern 2/4/00; 2 at the end of Riley Roberts Rd at Deal and 1 in the marsh near Fairmount **Rough-legged Hawk 2/4/00; 1 at Irish Grove **Virginia & Clapper Rail 2/4/00; in same field of view at Irish Grove **dark ibis sp 2/4/00; prob Glossy; at end of Riley Roberts Rd at Deal **Short-eared Owl 2/4/00; 10:30am sighting near end of Riley Roberts Rd at Deal **Lesser Yellowlegs 2/4/00; Irish Grove **Gray Catbird 2/4/00; 6 along Riley Roberts Rd at Deal and 1 at Irish Grove **Brown Thrasher 2/4/00; 2 birds along Riley Roberts Rd On Sunday, 2/6, we stopped briefly at E.A. Vaughn to hunt for Harris' Sparrow (not), LeConte's Sparrow (not--field is flooded now), and sharp-tailed sparrows (not). No Orange-crowned Warblers were present either. At Tarbutton Mill Rd in Talbot, there was no Sandhill Crane. A single Pine Siskin was seen at Les Roslund's feeder (THANKS LES!) We reached Caroline County at 4:30pm with about an hour of sunlight. I was able to get my first ever life (well...at least since I've been keeping good records) close-outs for Maryland: Red-bellied Woodpecker European Starling House Sparrow Northern Cardinal Okay. It's a start. It's a little humbling, but I've spent most of my life running out-of-state to see birds. But now, I'm finding this county thing is pretty much fun. I certainly get to know my home state better and I'm learning more about specific habitats for the more common birds. Although I've driven through Calvert County 8 times this year, I have yet to record a bird there (always dark). The counties I haven't visited yet this year are Harford, Cecil, and Kent. Yup. Still need the trash birds in all those counties to get my 25 annual close-outs. :-) This year has been a blast so far. Here's to a good year! -Greg Miller Hollywood, MD __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================