Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2000 12:22:30 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Mike Callahan Subject: Signs of a Birder MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Signs that reconfirm you are a birder.: 1) Around 10:30 am on Saturday while at my high school reunion committee meeting in Montgomery Village, I interrupted the meeting to point out that there were was one White-breasted and two Red-breasted Nuthatches at the host's feeder. You know you are a birder when you interrupt a meeting(of non birders) to point out birds. 2) While out road banding in Montgomery County yesterday afternoon, I too saw X-rated raptor behavior. On Piedmont Rd near intersection of Springtown Rd I observed two Red-tailed Hawks soaring and landing on telephone poles and then observed the female land, followed by the male who mounted her and copulated. What a treat! Obviously the RTHA's had their mind on things other then food, so I had to settle for banding my first male American Kestrel. 3) Saturday night at 10:00 pm, I heard flocks of Tundra Swan flying over Laurel. It was too dark to see them, but I enjoyed looking up listening to them and imagining how it must look when you migrate at night. Wondering how do birds that migrate by night see landmarks or do they depend on magnetic orientation. I had forgotten from my days in Dr. Messersmith's ornithology class at the University of MD, so I checked in my text book. I was reminded that they use both visual and magnetic orientation when migrating by night. The visual relies less on land marks and more on celestial navigation by using. I wonder what the swans were saying to one another as they traveled the night skies. Perhaps wondering how much the landscape below had changes since their last migration. 4) This time of year can be very stressful on your neck and arm muscles. Constantly looking to the sky or straining your neck to look out of your car window when you see movement in the sky, or a shadow on the road in front of you. It is time of year that when I see a car pulled off on the side of the road and get excited that it might be birders that have found something really cool. I have got a bad case of Spring fever. I hope you are having as much fun with the onset of Spring Migration as I am! Good Birding! Naturally, Mike Callahan On Mon, 13 Mar 2000 18:30:14 -0500 Mary Lou Clark writes: > Gail; > I haven't told him about the "birds" and the bees yet, so he > didn't say > anything about what they were doing. Am I a coward, or what? > > Mary Lou Clark > > ======================================================================= > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to > listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================