Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 16:02:57 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Jim Stasz Subject: Weekend in Worcester MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Folks! I helped Marshall Iliff move into his new place in Ocean City [he will be there until sometime in April]. On Friday [9/29] we had time to check the big fields behind the Assateague I. NS Visitors' Center before sunset. Tromping through the chest-high [and sometimes overhead high] weeds rewarded us with 1 Sora, 2 Prarie Warblers, 12 Western Palm Warblers, 15 field Sparrows, 15 Savannah Sparrows, 1 Swamp Sparrow, 30 Bobolinks, 2 DICKCISSEL and 1CLAY-COLORED SPARROW. The predawn flight Saturday [9/30] was dismal, with 7 Swainson's Thrush and 1 Veery. Bayside at dawn was also very slow, with fewer than a dozen migrants dropping in. Lots of bush beating yielded: 1 Eastern Phoebe, 2 White-eyed Vireo, 1 WARBLING Vireo, 1 Red-eyed Vireo, 2 Golden-crowned Kinglet, 1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet, 45 Gray Catbird, 9 Brown Thrasher, 1 Nashville, 1 Magnolia, 1 Cape May, 1 Black-throated Blue, 1 Myrtle, 1 Black-throated Green, 4 Prairie, 10 Western Plam, 1 Blackpoll, 2 Redstart, 1 PROTHONOTARY, 6 Yellowthroat, 2 CLAY-COLORED SPARROW [in the "Vireo Grove"], 2 White-throated Sparrow, and 5 Baltimore Oriole. A single Merlin was the hawk flight. A check of the State Park land north of the causeway yielded 1 Wilson's Warbler, 1 Chat, 1 Prarire, 1 Western Palm, and 1 Cape May. A drive down the ORV Zone was interrupted by a very High Tide, so we revisited the fileds behind the Assateague I. NS Visitor's Center. Highlights included: 1 Sora, 1 Wood-Pewee sp. [I think it was an Eastern with an almost all dark bill: see the photo in the new Kaufman Guide], 1 Nashville, 3 YELLOW [getting late], 1 Magnolia, 2 Pine, 1 Prarie, 20 Western Palm, 1 Blackpoll, 4 Redstart, 1 Northern Waterthrush, 10 Savannah Sparrows, and 10 Bobolink. In the late afternoon we did drive the ORV Zone and in addition to a dead Loggerhead Sea Turtle and a dead baleen whale: 20 Brown Pelican, 16 Surf Scoter, 1 Peregrine Falcon, 604 Sanderling, 16 Western Willet, 6 Black-bellied Plover, 68 Caspian Tern, 41 Royal Tern, 2 Forster's Tern [zero Sandwich, zero Common], 189 Ring-billed Gulls, 492 Herring, 47 and Great Black-backed. A Rough Green Snake was found in the woods east of Dune Crossover #4. Sunday morning [10/1] we visited the E.A. Vaughn WMA Central Area, accessed from Rt. 12 south of Girdletree. There were no predawn migrants calling. Once again lots of hard work was needed to winkle out the few migrants. Highlights included: ZERO Mourning Dove [see below], 8 Eastern Screech-Owls, 1 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker [my first of the Fall], 1 Philadelphia Vireo, 4 Red-eyed Vireo, 1 Blue-winged Warbler [getting late], 1 f. GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLER [a County Bird for both of us and a new Record Late Date], 3 Northern Parula, 5 Magnolia, 1 Myrtle, 4 Pine, 2 Western Plam, 8 Black-and-white, 12 Redstart, 5 Savannah Sparrow, 1 Grasshopper Sparrow, 1 Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and 1 Baltimore Oriole. The noteable lack of Mourning Doves is in the fact that this area is posted as a Dove Hunting Area and is supposedly managed for doves by Maryland DNR. Marshall and I suspect that Mark Hoffman of DNR has actually claimed that the management is for doves, but is really habitat improvement designed by him to attract Le Conte's, Nelson's Sharp-tailed, and Harris's sparrows, with the hope of luring in Painted and Lark buntings. Good Birding! Jim Jim Stasz North Beach MD jlstasz@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================