Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 09:00:40 PDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Don Burggraf Subject: Cromwell Valley Park 5/5, etc. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I caught a couple of hours at Cromwell Valley this morning. Warblers were somewhere else, I guess. Only yellow, common yellowthroat, northern parula, and (three!) chats. The Cromwell Valley specialties were present: bobolink and blue grosbeak. Acadian Flycatcher was singing, as well as both orioles. (I had at least 9 Baltimore Orioles!) A yellow-billed cuckoo flew by. Warbling and white-eyed vireos sang aggressively. My only black-throated blue warbler so far this Spring has been in the little alley running behind the church where I serve. I was interested in Rick Blom's report of his Western trip. It came as no surprise that, with an airplane and with such experienced birders, he would have a huge list compared to the list I generated when I went out West last week. Limited to southern California, I managed to pick up 25 life species (yay), with a trip total of 185. I also had several "investment" birds - two parakeets which have been established well enough that the ABA may recognize them in the future, and a subspecies of fox sparrow that may get split in the future. The most difficult bird to get was LeConte's trasher. (They do know how to skulk and hide!) I got lucky several times (mountain quail, white-headed woodpecker, pinyon Jay, white-tailed kite, a trip to Santa Cruz Island with three pelagic species, not to mention sabine's gull, etc.) My all-time highest priority target bird, vermillion flycatcher, flew in for a wonderful look on the first day of my trip! On Saturday, I met a man from LA and we had a "big day" of 116 species. No, I didn't do as well as the airplane crew, but I'm a happy camper. Don Burggraf Baltimore ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================