Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 19:05:26 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: W-F Geese yes, B-H Nuthatch no Comments: To: Voice@capaccess.org Hi all -- Today Barry and I did a run through Calvert and St. Mary's Counties. We stopped at the pond at the Victoria Station subdivision but found no geese except four tame beasts. As noted earlier, we then tarried at Calvert Cliffs waiting for the Little Gulls to decide to show up in decent scope view, again to no avail. Next we crossed over to St. Mary's Co. and found the two White-Fronted Geese with Canadas, still near the intersection of Rt. 5 and Park Hall Rd. The geese were actually in a field on Park Hall, just beyond the intersection, on the north side. There is a small pond and a gray frame house to the left of the field. The first time we drove by, the White-fronts were not visible, being over the pond embankment, but they eventually showed. There are several Canada flocks along Rt. 5 and probably all should be checked. Then up to the Sea Breeze, where we ticked up the Kelpster for 2000 (looking very spiffy, I might add) and then back to Calvert, stopping to scope the two Peregrines sitting on the north side of the bridge. It was still too early to try for the gulls again, so we went to Lloyd Bowen Road where, despite much pishing from the end all the way through the big pine woods, we saw and heard no sign of any nuthatch. It was, however, midday and pretty quiet everywhere. Back to the power station where again we dipped on the Little Gull, except for a distant bird on the water which *may* have been one but (even in the Questar) could not be seen clearly enough to get details of wing points and color. There were quite a few ducks on the water, including a huge flock of Lesser Scaup, as well as several loons moulting into summer plumage, and about 40 Horned Grebes. We ran quickly by North Beach's boardwalk, seeing two very large duck flocks well offshore, which appeared to be mostly Scaup. Since our day;s prime target had been the White-fronts, we were pretty satisfied... Cheers, Gail Mackiernan ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================