Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2000 19:58:13 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Peter A. Webb" Subject: 3 Upland Sandpipers John Brown Road; 2 Hudsonian Godwits Bombay Hook Comments: To: marvadel@egroups.com, voice@capaccess.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" John Brown Road (QA County), 8-8:15 this am, 3 Upland Sandpipers and several Pectoral Sandpipers in the grassy field opposite the driveway to the brick house on the right. The adjacent dirt field had Horned Larks while a few peeps too distant to identify accompanied the Pecks at a small body of water in the grass. One more Uppie at Dover AFB, Delaware. 2 Hudsonian Godwits at the north end of Raymond Pool in Bombay Hook NWR in Delaware 9:30 am through at least 12:30 noon today. In the impoundments just north of the entrance to Finis Pool off the road to Allee House, four imm and one adult Little Blue Heron at their usual place. Western Sandpipers outnumbered Semi-SP's about 20 or 50 to 1 at Port Mahon Road and elsewhere around Delaware Bay. Only a handful were still showing the bright scapulars and crowns of retained breeding plumage, most were pretty much fully into basic (winter) plumage, about the same color as the mostly basic plumaged Sanderlings. The Semi's, by contrast, appeared darker, browner, and a bit chunkier vs the leaner, longer, lighter, grayer Westerns. ID was by bill shape and proportions, and by the bright plumage on the small number of birds retaining some breeding plumage, which matched the pale basic-plumaged birds in shape and bills. A couple of Caspian Terns flew by as we crossed the Bay Bridge homeward bound to Baltimore. Observers included Pete Webb (pwebb@bcpl.net), Keith Eric Costley (OrioleKEC1@aol.com), Scott Crabtree (ccrabtre@radium.ncsc.mil, who first spotted the Godwits) and a number of birders from Baltimore, the ANS, and a third group of birders all touring Bombay Hook today. Pete Webb Baltimore, MD (USA) pew@niroinc.com (work, M-F 830-5) pwebb@bcpl.net (home, after 6) Pete Webb pwebb@bcpl.net (home, after 6) pew@niroinc.com (work, 830-5 M-F) ======================================================================== To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================== == ========================================================================