Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 23:22:35 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Joel Martin Subject: Delmarva Highlights, 5/15-5/17 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Last Monday thru Wednesday my 9-5 job sent me to Ocean City for a conference, which gave me an opportunity to squeeze in some birding during free time. I drove down via Bombay Hook on Monday, birded North Pocomoke Swamp early Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, OC area Tuesday afternoon, tried Truitt's Landing Tuesday night, then home Wednesday afternoon though Delaware's portion of NP Swamp ("Burnt Swamp" to the locals, I discovered). I surprised myself with 115 species, 13 warblers, and a bunch of new birds for both state lists. At Bombay Hook I found Shireen Gonzaga but missed the CURLEW SANDPIPER -- it apparently showed up later. Some good warblers including a probable female Blackburnian. Other birders had just seen a Cape May. A flock of CEDAR WAXWINGS was a nice surprise. North Pocomoke near Shepherd's Crossing yielded WILD TURKEY, GREAT HORNED and BARRED OWLS, both TANAGERS, both WATERTHRUSHES and well seen YELLOW-THROATED WARBLERS, plus lots of PROTHONOTARIES. At Skimmer Island on 5/16, the highlight was a flock of 9 RED KNOTS that flew in while I was scoping the terns. The OC jetties still had at least 6 PURPLE SANDPIPERS in breeding plumage. West OC Pond had a calico LITTLE BLUE HERON. While scoping the pond a singing BLACKPOLL WARBLER moved through the willows right over my head, almost close enough to touch -- never been that close to one. Truitt's Landing on Tuesday night was windy and a waste of time. Leaving OC on Wednesday, I drove through Assawoman WMA and found an apparently nesting pair of RED-HEADED WOODPECKERS (Take Strawberry Landing Rd. about halfway back and look for a dead, broken-topped, barkless pine tree on the left side of the road). Also got Pine and Prothonotary Warbler there. All in all a very pleasant trip, though I can't seem to remember what the conference was all about. Joel Martin Catonsville ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey =======================================================================