Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 16:50:37 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Shireen Gonzaga Subject: Re: Birds and Horseshoe Crabs Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > From: Rick Sussman > Instead we went just north of there to Mispillion > Lighthouse/Mispillion Pt. where we saw many hundreds, if not thousands, of > Red Knots, Dunlin, Willets, Black-necked Stilts, Semi-palmated Sandpipers, > etc. Just wanted to toss in a few stories... last week, I had the opportunity to help the International Shorebird Team with some banding at a sliver of land opposite the Mispillion lighthouse. (It was accessible only by boat). My task that day was to weigh the knots during "processing." The lightest bird I had was 99 grams. The heaviest bird was 208 grams. They really do double their weight during their DE bay stopover! I've read about it for so many years, but to actually feel it in my hand was an awesome experience. A few other neat experiences happened the next day at North Bowers beach. We caught a partially albino knot--that bird was photographed in detail by the team and DNREC before release. We also caught a knot banded in Argentina, and another one banded in DE 2 years ago. And one bird had a radio transmitter on it. (BTW, during the time I worked with this team, no birds were injured--this team is really good and took extraordinary care to maintain the well-being of the birds.) You may be interested to know that an old study had suggested that most horseshoe crab eggs are not digested, but instead pass through the intestinal tract unprocessed. Not true. Results from a team from the Netherlands, who were working with knots and turnstone last year, have shown that eggs in the bird droppings had been pierced--the nutritious contents extracted and the outer egg covering passed out. Pretty amazing, huh?! cheers, shireen ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================