Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 15:55:01 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Bea Nicholls Subject: Huntley Meadows Bishop MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm a little busy getting ready to fly to MN, but I took the day off yesterday to go see the bishop you all have been talking about. I had to sit at the picnic bench near the feeders for over an hour before it came in, but it was worth the wait. It's a pretty little bird which may be a female, but I wondered if it could be an immmature male. In back, when it moved its wings out of the way, there was a decided orange patch which was probably its upper tail coverts, but possibly its rump. It had a lovely pastel peach color above and down the sides of its upper breast. Not evident in this area was the faint striping seen in the National Geographic field guide, although the bird was standing in sunlight and I was looking at it with Swarovski 10X glasses. Its bill and legs seemed a brighter pink than NG suggests. As it stretched up to look over the surrounding environment, it appeared to be slightly longer and slimmer than the 4 inches specified in the NG guide, and it certainly is much more attractive than their picture. Going offline the end of this week; will return after the 18th. Bea Nicholls Baltimore County, Essex/Middle River area ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================