Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2000 01:26:14 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Marshall Iliff Subject: Juvenile Ruff in Worcester County MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, For those contemplating heading to Assateague for the Black-tailed Gull, this may sweeten the pot a bit. It is only about 25 minutes from Assateague. I was very pleased today (3:30 p.m., 10/12) to find a fresh juvenile Ruff, the first I've seen in that plumage, at the Central Site (Newark) Landfill in Worcester County. The landfill is located about 3 mi north of Snow Hill and is well signed along the east side of Rte. 113. The entrance road is signed "Central Site Rd.", I think, and lies between Proter's Crossing Rd. and Five-mile Branch Rd.. The entrance is about 1.5 mi in length before you reach administration buildings where one can ask permission to bird the landfill, which is open from 8 am-4pm, at least from Monday-Saturday. I think it is still open on Sundays in October but forgot to check this. If anyone goes today or tomorrow perhaps you can confirm this? Mark Hoffman has cultivated an excellent relationship with the staff here at the landfill ,so if you do go look for this bird PLEASE be on your BEST behavior to insure that this relationship with the birding communtiy stays strong. They were very friendly when I stopped in and wanted all the details on the Hoffman family. The Ruff was feeding contentedly in the pond at the west side of the landfill. After the scales the road will skirt a wood edge with a large field (which looks good for Le Conte's Sparrows, by the way) on the right. Eventually the road will split with the well-beaten track heading onto the active landfill to the right while an older road leads to the left along the base of an old landfill mound. This track leads a short distance (0.1 mi?) to a large depression which has several pools suitable for shorebirds. When I was there I counted 700+ Laughing Gulls, 15 Pectoral, 6 Least, and 2 Stilt Sandpipers, as well as 10+ Lesser Yellowlegs. The Ruff was feeding in the nearest pool but was best seen by walking down into the pit and getting closer to the bird. It is a very attractive bird with a light buffy wash to the breast and neck and very fresh, nicely edged wing coverts. I did not get any photos. Hopefully it will hang in for others that would like to look for it. The landfill is a GREAT area to bird which is very rarely covered. While the gull numbers were fairly low (I was looking for Franklin's, of course!), the shorebird ponds look PERFECT for Baird's or Buff-breasted (though there were no Killder, surprisingly) and I did NOT check all the nooks and coves thoroughly. The grassy areas are full of sparrows and in a quick stop I saw 15+ Swamp and 15+ Songs. Rarer species are possible if not likely. Best, Marshall Iliff miliff@aol.com Annapolis, MD PS - For someone doing a MD Big year (sort of...between travel at least), the notion of saving your year Ruff until October is eaither a) very brazen or b) very porr strategy. PPS - Actually I had spent no less than 4 days on the Eastern Shore this spring SPECIFICALLY looking for Ruffs, and have made at least 6 trips to Blackwater, and three to the ORV zone of Assateague _looking_ for Ruffs. I went to Hart 4x this summer and checked every yellowlegs-like thing TWICE. Nice to finally be rewarded! ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================