Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 02:29:03 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Marshall Iliff Subject: Ridgely WWTP specifics - Eared Grebe still present 9/11 (afternoon) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MDOsprey, I dashed to Ridgely WWTP for the reported Eared Grebe and found it presen t from 4:30-5:00 p.m. Monday (9/11) evening. I think it is an adult. I di d not get any photos, though it allows fairly close approach and will be a good subject for anyone with a decent (300+ mm) lens. Also present were most of the birds Mark reported: 88 Mallards, 1 Am. Black Duck, 6 Blue-winged and 4 Green-winged Teal, 1 shoveler, 2 Ruddy Ducks (these birds oversummered), 2 Lesser Yellowlegs (0 Stilt Sandpipers), 30 Killdeer, 1 White-rumped Sandpiper, 15 Semipalmated and 6 Least Sandpipers, 2 Spotted Sandpipers, 4 Tree Swallows, 1 Barn Swallow, and a couple Bobolinks. I did talk to plant presonnel today and they have no problem with birders visiting and were somewhat interested in the bird. Gates open at 7:30 an d close at 4:00, but there may be exceptions to this (I arrived at 4:20 and the man there not only let me go in, but simply asked me to close the gate be hind me!). They are likely closed on weekends. As I said before, a grebe mig ht be seen by standing o nthe roof of your car even when the plant is closed. Directions were in my earlier post, but are reiterated here: Ridgely WWTP is DeLorme map p51 c4. To get there take Rte. 480 north of Rte. 404. Go left on Sunset Blvd. (across from grain elevators, before town) at 2.8 mi. Folow for 0.5 mi going left on the poorly signed Cow Barn Rd.. Make an immediate left on Ball Rd. after crossing the Railroad tracks. The pl ant entrance is 0.5 mi on your right. At John Brown Rd. turf farm were 17 ad. Am. Golden-Plovers, 2 Black-belli ed Plovers, 1 juv. Buff-breasted, and 1 ad. White-rumped Sandpiper, among several other species of shorebirds on the dirt. All were in the dirt fi eld caddycorner to the white house's driveway (i.e. north side of road). Clark's Lane had only Horned Larks. Zero Killdeer (!?). Good birding, Marshall Iliff miliff@aol.com Annapolis, MD << Marshall already posted that I found an Eared Grebe at the Ridgely Sew age Ponds today about 1 pm (9/11). It was hanging out with 2 Ruddy Ducks (!) in the impoundment on the right. Total list (1300-1340): Canada Goose - 2 Mallard - 80 N. Shoveler - 1 Ruddy Duck - 2 Green-winged Teal - 2 A. Black Duck - 2 Eared Grebe - 1 (the bird was in full basic plumage) Killdeer - 30 Semipalmated Sandpiper - 13 Least Sandpiper - 15 White-rumped Sandpiper - 1 Lesser Yellowlegs - 2 Stilt Sandpiper - 2 Tree Swallow - 40 Barn Swallow - 2 Mark Hoffman >> ======================================================================== To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================== ==========================================================================