Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 19:49:57 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Howard Youth Subject: Tuesday Night-heron Fever Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Just got back from the Zoo, where, as expected, the night-heron mating ga= me is well underway. It seems the entire cast is back. I was counting the herons with one eye and watching my daughter toddle around with the other= , but I'm guessing there are between 350 and 400 birds. (That jibes with th= e estimate of 200 pairs that I remember hearing from Zoo folks.) The colony= 's been growing and still centers on the Birdhouse Wetlands Exhibit (where plenty of wild wood ducks also mingle with the waterfowl collection). I didn't have binos with me, and couldn't carefully scan the many circling and perching herons (many flying around with sticks in their bills), but now's the time to check for a yellow-crowned among the masses. Soon the leaves will fill in the scene, but for now it's just bare branches and bunches of night-herons. Howard Youth hmyouth@erols.com Rockville, MD ========================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ========================================================================= ===========================================================================