Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 01:50:44 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Marshall Iliff Subject: Re: Blue-winged Warblers at Little Bennett MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, A quick post, sort of to say "hi" in passing, but a comment that perhaps = has some bearing on birds on MD... > Many Neotropical Migrants are well into or have completed nesting. Now = is > when they go through a complete molt and are more vulnerable to predat= ion > because of impaired flight. In a few weeks the first southbound warbl= ers > will be passing through. Nay Jim, they already are (Jim knows that...). I am on a 6 hour layover between a trip to Chan Chich, Belize, and a VENT tour to Washington State. Among 160 spp. I had in Belize were: two LOUISIANA WATERTHRUSHES on 7 Jul= y. So...birds are moving. One aspect of migration in the state that is very hard to assess are thes= e types of cases. Louisiana Waterthrush is a widespread breeder statewide,= so, with a few exceptions, any given sighting could pertain as easily to a ne= ster as a migrant. It is especially valuable and interesting then when people= who bird a local "patch" (or their yard) intensely can pick up on migratory movements of such species. I personally only have one fall migrant recor= d from my yard of Lousiana Waterthrush (they don't nest near my yard at all= ), and it came sometime around 20-30 July. A few other early migrants that are probably moving past us unnoticed alr= eady include Yellow Warbler, Orchard Oriole, and Eastern Kingbird. If you see birds in places that seem "funny" or indicate migratory movement, those w= ould be of interest to those of us that track such things... Also, if anyone is interested in a trip report from my ten day stay at Ch= an Chich Lodge, Belize, I would be glad to send it over the next couple week= s. A sampling to whet your appetites...Ornate Hawk-Eagle, Great Currasow, go= bs of Ocellated Turkey, three species of toucans, Rose-throated and Golden-masked Tanagers, four trogons etc.... Best, Marshall Iliff miliff@aol.com Annapolis, MD ========================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ========================================================================= ===========================================================================