Date: Mon, 13 Mar 2000 07:56:56 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Paul Woodward Subject: Re: Rusty Blacckbirds MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit fwfallon@MNSINC.COM Wrote: > Our first Rusty Blackbirds of the year - Mar 4 at the Fran Uhler Area > (near PWRC), 10 sitting quietly in a bare tree, as they sometimes do. An > increasingly uncommon bird. In an article last year in the Journal of Conservation Biology Greenberg and Droge suggested that from the 1960's to the 1980's , based on Christmas counts and Breeding Bird Surveys, populations of Rusty Blackbirds declined 90%. They attribute at least part of the decline to acid rain on the breeding grounds in Canada. If this is true then possibly Solitary Sandpipers which nest in the same habitat, often in old blackbird nests, should show a similar decline. These would be two species to pay spoecial attention to as they pass through Maryland. I think, however, one of the major reasons for the rusty decline was the massive killing of blackbirds in their winter roosts during this period, but I digress. This past winter was the best ones I've had for rusties at McKee-Beshers W.M.A. in Montgomery CO. I had counts of 225-250 on Jan.9, 237 on Jan. 15, 80-90 on Jan. 22 and 96 on Jan. 22. I had smaller numbers on 1-29 (10), 12-28 (5) and 12-27 (1). Paul Woodward Fairfax City, VA grackling@worldnet.att.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================