Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 07:49:42 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Marshall Iliff Subject: Red Phalarope @ 4:30 and other birds in the rain MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello all, Thanks to aheads up from Jim, I was able to dash out the door at 3:15 an made it to Ridgely by 4:20 p.m.. The gate was unfortunately closed by th at point, but by standing on my car roof in the rain I was able to see into the ponds. Almost immediately the phalarope flew by in the back of the right hand pond (the ducks etc. had been flushed by a harrier). A couple minut es later it flew closer but ducked behind a bubble and was lost from view. I was fairly confident it was a Red Phalarope, but I did not get views satisfactory for specific ID until after another 20 minutes of standing i n the cold rain. Eventually, I was able to scope the bird feeding in the b ack of the ponds, and I agree with John that based on back color (even gray) and bill shape it was a Red Phalarope. I was unable to age the bird, but tho ught it most likely an adult in basic plumage. The juvenile that I photographed here in October 1997 had a prominent buffy/orange wash on the neck/breast that this bird seemed to lack and al so still had some juvenile tertials. I could not see the detail on this bir d, but would expect a juvenile not to be in this advanced a stage of molt. It will be interesting to see what John's pictures show in this regard. I too went to Hurlock but found a somewhat different selection of birds. I did NOT see the Eared Grebe, somehow, but may not have looked carefully enough (which cell was it in John?). I did see 3 Pied-billed Grebes, 3 Forster's and one adult COMMON TERN, 1 Semi Sand, 1 Least Sand, 2 RUDDY TURNSTONES, 105 Northern Shovelers, 1 American Wigeon (my first of the fa ll), 6 Green-winged and 2 Blue-winged Teal, 1 Black Duck, Mallards, Canada Gee se, 2 Barn Swallows, and 100 Tree Swallows, the former not associating at all with the latter. In the plowed field along the entrance road I counted 2 55 Killdeer, 2 juv Black-bellied Plovers, 5 Golden-Plovers, 1 juv LONG-BILLE D DOWITCHER, 5 Pectoral Sandpipers, and 5 Lesser Yellowlegs. To my knowled ge, the dowitcher is the first for Hurlock WWTP as is the Common Tern. Amazingly, five other species of terns have occurred at Hurlock prior to Common (Forster's, Black, Least, Caspian, Gull-billed - in order of decreasing abundance). I will hedge my bets for the next species now, an d it is NOT Royal Tern... Flooded fields are everywhere with the recent harvest and the heavy rain. At the 213/404 intersection in Caroline County were 1 ad and 2 juv Black-bel lied Plovers w/ 100 Killdeer while 2 Am. Golden-Plovers (ad, juv) were in a la rge floooded field just north of the town of Hurlock (on Rte. 703 I think). With the phalarope, the tern, the turnstones, and the numerous shorebirds in flooded fields, there seems to be a minor waterbird fallout at inland locations. Anyone living near Deep Creek Lake, Rocky Gap, Black Hills Reservoir, Loch Raven Res., or the Potomac or Susquehanna Rivers would be well-advised to have a look tomorrow ESPECIALLY if it is raining. These are CLASSIC conditions for the inland appearance of phalaropes, jaegers, tern s, shorebirds etc. that migrate overland and are grounded by poor weather. SABINE'S GULL must be the top pick at this time of year, as their occurre nces in PA and elsewhere in the interior USA tend to peak in late Sept to earl y Oct. Jim will be chasing the Red Phal early tomorrow and will surely update th e list with his news. Best of luck to him and others that try, and heartfe lt thanks to J.B. for year bird #307. Best, Marshall Iliff miliff@aol.com << Hello, Today at around 11 am I photographed what I believe to be a Red Phalarope at the Ridgely Ponds (WWTP). I have the prints in hand but I' ll probably have to wait until Tuesday afternoon to get to a scanner so you all can see this beautiful bird. I will put a photo or two on a web-page sometime tomorrow. I thought at first that it was a Red-necked Phalarope but it's back was entirely light gray, the bill was rather thick and when I watched it fly for a short distance, it had a large white wing stripe. There was a black p atch around the eye and above the eye (not encompassing the top of the head). other weekend highlights: 1 Eared Grebe at Hurlock Today (Black Terns elude me; but indigo bunting does not ... ca-ching) 5 Am. Golden Plover at Hurlock Today 2 Merlins at Assateague last evening (and a whole lot of rain last night ) Gray Cheeked Thrush at Piney Mtn Hunting Area (Garrett Co) on Saturday morning J.B. Churchill jchurchi@wvu.edu >> ======================================================================== To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================== ==========================================================================