Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2000 13:14:47 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Leslie Roslund Subject: Re: Red Phalarope @ 4:30 and other birds in the rain MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Phalarope Chasers: At noon today (Sept 26), the Red Phalarope was still in place. After seeing Jim's note, I looked out the window at a patch of thin clouds, and in fear that the weather would clear up and then the bird wou ld clear out, I joined the search. Thirty minutes later at the Ridgely WWTP , I found Harvey Mudd and his wife standing in the rain about 3/4 the way dow= n the center dike, staring through binocs and scope at something nearly at their feet. I joined them in the viewing - the target bird was in fact dining as close as 20 feet from us - totally oblivious to our presence, a nd the Mudds said the creature had been parading along the cell separation l ine for the duration of their visit. We watched it for another 20 minutes, i n intermittent rain, and with the wind blowing so as to concentrate the tas ty morsels for the bird right at the base of the impoundment below us. Talk about killer views! It is easy to see why the Europeans would call this bird a Grey Phalarope. Full winter plumage is the stage shown by the bird - a very g rey back. At our close viewing range, the thick bill was obvious, and the b ird was cooperative enough to make a couple of short flights which allowed go od viewing of relatively wide white bands on the wings in flight. A delightful bird to see! It was last seen by us at about 12:10 p.m. Les Roslund Lroslund@bluecrab.org Easton, MD ======================================================================== To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================== ==========================================================================