Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 09:21:08 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: Re: Assateague/WC-9/16-17-LaSp,PhVi,MoWa,YBFl,etc. In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 20 Sep 2000 22:41:07 -0400 from Hi Michael -- I was going to email you to ask if your birds were only the morning counts at Higbee's dike or involved other sites. You beat me to it! All of our birds are also dawn-flight counts, in an area the size of a basketball court. And we do get morning flights in good seasons of some thrushes and cuckoos passing across the tree gap just at dawn. Also Common Yellowthroat, athough most of these filter into the small bits of scrub and grass in the clearing. Numbers I posted reflect counts from dawn to about 8 am. Our birds are, in general, congregating at the high west ridge of Rock Creek as the first light reaches these trees -- obviously dropping into the trees in flocks and then rather rapidly dispersing downslope as the sun comes up. The major flight is over by 7:30 - 8 am in this season, depending on sun conditions, and the rest of the time is spent "mopping up" on skulkers. I would tend to think the relative species differences are real at least for the more numerous taxa and do reflect, as you noted, migratory pathways. Gail Mackiernan ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================