Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2000 02:04:02 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Mark Hoffman Subject: Maryland/Worcester County March Big Day-Part 1-Intro MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Maryland/Worcester County March Big Day-Part 1-Intro Continuing the thread of month-specific Maryland big day attempts, the intrepid team of Marshall Iliff, Mark Hoffman and Jim Stasz attempted a March Maryland big day on 3/31. We used last year's 3/31/99 effort by Iliff et al. as our standard (which recorded 136 species, see MDOsprey post of 4/3/99). The recent Iliff et al. January big day, which netted 138 species (130 in Worcester County, see post of 1/12/00), also weighed heavily in our strategizing. Unlike last year, however, we decided (at Marshall's suggestion!) to limit our effort to Worcester County (he's getting smarter with age). In the January effort, the only non-Worcester time was at Deal Island at dusk (other than pre-dawn night birding), so we did not think we would be sacrificing much. We felt it would be possible to make a legitimate state-level attempt, in the single county. It would also allow more time birding, rather than driving. The prior March effort had started at Irish Grove and included Cambridge and Elliot Island at the end, netting only 108 species in Worcester. I had birded in the county on 3/22, but otherwise we had no "hot" bird-location information. This is an important consideration in planning a March big day, as opposed to a January effort. The early January tries come on the heals of the coastal Christmas Bird Counts, which usually generate several staked-out rarities, and of equal importance, multiple fresh locations for uncommon wintering species (e.g. House Wren, Palm Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, etc.). Also of value was a print-out from Hoffman's data base of Worcester County bird observations. Of some 72,000 records, he queried the file for all records falling between 20 March and 5 April. The query gave some 3,000 records that I had listed in taxonomic order. This help target priority species, potential locations and formalize the game plan. Iliff has already committed the print-out to memory. Marshall and I got down to Worcester about 3:00 p.m. on 3/30. We scouted a number of ponds in the northern/central part of the county (Showell Sewage Ponds, Ocean Pines Ponds, Griffin Road Ponds, Berlin Sewage Ponds, Goody Hill Road Pond, Newark Pond, Snow Hill [a.k.a. Ross's Goose] Pond). This effort netted little of importance, other than we would not need to visit most of these locations on 3/31. There are a large number of waterfowl ponds in Worcester County, and you could spend a full day checking them and doing nothing else. We needed to scratch some locations from our potential itinerary. We did some limited landbirding, including the infamous Wal-Mart Field, which was dead, but a quick stop along Nassawango Road @ Nassawango Creek yielded both Blue-gray Gnatcatcher and Yellow-throated Warbler. A good sign that the early migrants were in. Last year's effort had missed the gnatcatcher. Additionally, we checked several flooded field situations, which had held a number of birds during the wet conditions on 3/22. Of particular value, was the traditional field pond on the west side of Rt. 12, about 0.5 miles south of the intersection with Rt. 113. This pond had Greater Yellowlegs (23), Lesser Yellowlegs (60), Pectoral Sandpiper (4), Dunlin (4) and dowitcher (sp.) (1). Clearly a "must visit" for the big day. Marshall and I split up for dusk, covering Scott's and Truitt's Landing. Both had Short-eared Owls and Sedge Wrens, while Truitt's also held King Rails (3), as usual, and Rusty Blackbird (8). It is traditionally a good spot for that tough-to-get species as well. Jim Stasz joined us about 8:00 p.m. at our hotel in Pocomoke City and we finalized our base strategy for the day. We would use the January effort as a model, starting at the Vaughn WMA central area (off of Rt. 12 just south of Girdletree), then hit Blades Road for any remaining woodland species we needed, then work back to the coast and north to OC. We would end with a sea watch, or if needed, at Truitt's. We were asleep by 10:00 p.m., attempting to violate Marshall's little-sleep-before-a-big-day rule. The alarm came early at 2:00 a.m. nonetheless. After a coffee stop (Jim and I out-voted Marshall 2-1), we were off. The Hoffman-Stasz veto-proof majority would come in handy during several other critical moments during the day. Mark Hoffman Mhoff36100@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================