Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 08:09:17 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Rob (Robert) Hilton" Subject: Re: Yes - Tufted Duck In-Reply-To: <38A6EABC.9EEAC8ED@erols.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:32 PM 2/13/00 -0500, you wrote: >As Mary Ann T. reported, the Tufted Duck was refound this morning >(Sunday, 2/13) in Washington Channel, opposite Hains Point (almost all >the way near the point, hugging the stone wall of Ft. McNair(?) with a >number of Lesser Scaup). > >I forgot to mention to Rob Hilton that there was a race going on, and >parking was getting tight while I was there. I assume it has cleared up >by now (12:30), though I know that it hampered views by others later in >the morning. The race was over when we arrived at around 9:45. Parking was no problem. > >I had other commitments, and couldn't stick around, and Dave Muzur. was >going to try to stay around as long as he could. Hopefully the bird has >been cooperative. Thanks for calling, Paul!! Thanks Dave for finding it!! It was visible until SS Icebreaker, I mean the cruise ship, Odyssey, ploughed down the channel. Many Scaup took off, the Tufted Duck evidently with them. The bird was not seen between after about 11:45. At 12:20 or so, when Lisa Shannon and I, the last birders, left, nobody had refound it. Ironically as the ship was cruising I was leaving a message with somebody that we were looking at it. We located two adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls on the ice before the ship began its voyage, and Dave Czaplak found a first-winter Iceland Gull flying up-channel toward the Maine Avenue waterfront/marina area. After the Odyssey had disappeared, the portion of the ice nearest to us at East Potomac Park was slowly moving north/west, up-channel, with its clutch of sitting gulls. The scene was faintly ridiculous, with the gulls being wafted left-ward on the sheet of sitting ice. >A big thanks to Dave M. for finding the bird this morning. I had all >but given up on the bird and was searching through the gulls instead. >Found 3 Lesser Black-backed, but no white winged gulls. > >Best, >Paul Pisano >cheep@erols.com Rob Hilton robert@csa.com BethesdaSilverSpring ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================