Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 15:37:30 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Marshall Iliff Subject: Mid-Atlantic CBC highs Comments: cc: Virginia Birding , georgearmistead@hotmail.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, On a recent Mango chase George Armistead and I had a chance to have a thorough look-through the latest CBC issue from National Audubon. We particularly enjoyed the "All time CBC highs" section which not only has some fascinating trivia, but also a few outlandish obvious errors (e.g. 51,000 Semipalmated Sandpieprs reported from a Florida CBC -- Semis are now known to be extremely rare winterers in North America). That said, the issue provided some interesting reading. Of interest to area birders may be our compilation of all time record high counts held by the mid-Atlantic area, loosley defined by us as PA-NJ-DE-MD-VA-NC. We believe this list is fairly complete, but could have missed one or two high counts. I will make no comment as to the accuracy of some of the numbers - while some counts seem far-fetched others were simply the result of an extraordinary effort or extraordinary conditions. MID-ATLANTIC HIGHS Red-throated Loon 6350 (NC, Pamlico Sound-88) Common Loon 2500 (NC, Morehead City 81) Horned Grebe 2683 (VA, Back Bay NWR 67) Bermuda Petrel 1 (NC, Continental Shelf 85) Black-capped Petrel 115 (NC, Continental Shelf 83) Wilson's Storm-Petrel 351 (NC, Continental Shelf 87) Brown Pelican 5444 (NC, Cape Hatteras 99) Tundra Swan 51,000 (NC, Lake Mattamuskeet 89) Mute Swan 1413 (MD, St. Michaels 100) Greater Snow Goose 15,000 (Back Bay NWR 46) American Black Duck 36,000 (NJ, Oceanville 66) Canvasback 61,000 (MD, Susquehanna Flats-Sassafras River 53) - typo reports location as FL Black Scoter 16,300 (VA, Chincoteague NWR 65) Ruddy Duck 152,688 (VA, Williamsburg 97) Eurasian Woodcock 1 (NJ, Cape May 56) American Woodcock 570 (VA, Cape Charles 94) Bonaparte's Gull 148,000 (PA, Erie 89) Ring-billed Gull 600,000 (NC, Cape Hatteras 84) Black-tailed Gull 1 (Cape Charles 99; Chesapeake Bay 99, 100; Little Creek 99) Lesser Black-backed Gull 169 (PA, S. Bucks Co. 98) Kelp Gull 1 (Patuxent River 99, 100) Bridled Tern 2 (NC, Continental Shelf 85) Eastern Screech-Owl 220 (VA, Lynchburg 77) - vulnerable in some MD circles Great Horned Owl 153 (NJ, Cumberland Co. 98) Downy Woodpecker 719 (MD, Seneca 81) Red-cockaded Woodpecker 82 (NC, Southern Pines 98) Yellow-shafted Flicker 620 (MD, Seneca 84) Pileated Woodpecker 138 (MD, Seneca 98) Brown-headed Nuthatch 482 (MD, S. Dorchester Co. 60) - amazingly high count for a bird at the northern limit of its range Brown Creeper 182 (MD, Seneca 76) Myrtle Warbler 19,582 (NC, Bodie Pea Is. 76) Ipswich Sparrow 63 (MD, Ocean City 99) - I remember counting 55 of these birds personally... Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow 64 (NC, Morehead City 99) Song Sparrow 3624 (PA, Glenolden 66) White-throated Sparrow 7323 (PA, Central Bucks Co. 86) Purple Finch 4453 (NC, Chapel Hill 81) Best, Marshall J. Iliff miliff@aol.com George L. Armistead georgearmistead@hotmail.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================