Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 09:32:30 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: Albatross (not)... Apologies to Norm for a non-MD report, but the whereabouts of the (appare= ntly) southward-heading Yellow-nosed Albatross, seen in Delaware Bay on Tuesday= , is of interest to MD birders at the coast. On Tuesday, teh Albatross was seen several times throughout the day, on t= he Bay side, often giving very close views as it flew overhead, over the mar= shes, and (in the evening, sat on mud flats near Villa with large gulls.) One observer with whom we spoke yesterday said that he saw it doing a display (lifting head, waggling bill) to a Greater Black-back. We went up yesterday, as the bird had been seen so late in the day and th= e weather seemed conducive to its sticking around. Not. We joined a lot of other hopefuls and spent all day checking likely spots for a "big bird", = all to no avail. There were, however, two unconfimed reports that the bird had been seen m= uch further down the Bay, near the Cape May point (the concrete ship). One sa= id that teh bird landed on the water and drifted out of the Bay. It may be that the Albatross, which by many is considered to be the same = bird as was reported in Massachusetts and New York earlier in the month, will continue to make its way south. If so, birders should keep in mind that i= n Delaware, at least, it was often near or in company of large gulls and wa= s only seen on the Bay side, with the exception of Shawneen Finnagan's sigh= ting as it crossed the Garden State Pwy on Saturday! Or...it may simply have been elusive and may reappear... updates are bein= g posed to th NJ birdnet, which is archived on Jack Siler's web site. This is, of course, a real mega-rarity and a bird which very few of us ev= er expect to see from shore. Birders visiting the coast should keep their ey= es peeled! Cheers, Gail Mackiernan ========================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ========================================================================= ===========================================================================