Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000 20:55:59 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Marshall Iliff Subject: Salisbury CBC highlights Comments: cc: voice@capaccess.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MDOsprey, After doing the Lower Bucks County, PA, CBC on Saturday w/ George Armistead and Matt Sharp, I headed back "home" and did the Salisbury CBC (Wicomico County, MD) on Sunday. The weather was *not* conducive to birding and the pre-dawn lightning storm over Salisbury was one of the more memorable sights. High wind and scattered rain dominated the rest of the day, although after the heaviest rain and the frontal passage around 1:00 there were two hours of calm which provided excellent birding. Wind picked up again around 3:00 p.m. and was strong that dusk chorus was a non-issue and I failed to get *any* rails despite my great habitat. My territory was around the Whitehaven Ferry and included the entire Somerset County sliver of the Salisbury circle. There were, as always, a few surprises even with the poor weather. My best bird was an Orange-crowned Warbler off MacIntyre Rd., but 2 Vesper Sparrows, a snipe, and several ducks unique for the count were also nice. I was impressed with the several flocks of Chipping Sparrows totalling 97 individuals. The warbler total for the day was four, with Pine (2) and Palm (1 western, 1 yellow) rounding out my list. Three Laughing Gulls lfying up and down the Wicomico River were the only ones of the count. Rough directions to the Orange-crowned location (DeLorme 33 D5) are: South of Salisbury exit Rte. 13 on Mt. Vernon Rd.. Follow it to a left on Rte. 362. Follow for a little more than a mile and go left on MacIntyre Rd. Go past the dogleg and note the large clearcut that appears on the left, with woods on the right. Park at the small dirt road on your left on the southern edge of the clearcut and before the road deadends in a private drive. The Orange-crowned was in the thicket at the intersection of the dirt road and MacIntyre Rd. (actually the NE corner of the intersection). Also in the area were 4 Ruby-crowned Kinglets and 8+ Fox Sparrows. It was hard to see but persistently gave its Field Sparrow-like chip note and eventually popped into view. Tally highlights were: * Mute Swan (1st for count?) at Rewastico Mill Pond by Allen Deward, a rare Wicomico record * Short-eared Owl at Salisbury Landfill at dawn by the Brodericks. I looked for this bird this evening w/o success, and would be interested in any further sightings. * 8 Tree Swallows by sam Dyke near Wetipquin Creek just prior to the storm * 1 Lesser Black-backed Gull roosting in a field near the Salisbury Landfill by the Brodericks. Easy to get when the landfill is open, but a good find for a Sunday! The "Count Week" highlight appears to be a Brown Pelican seen in Salisbury today (Monday, 18 Dec) while I added American Woodcock (I think it was missed on the count day) this evening at Salisbury Landfill. If anyone on the list is in contact with Sam Dyke, please let him know about this... In other news, the Lower Bucks, PA, CBC had intermittent rain on Saturday. The highlight for me was seeing the gull flock at Tullytown/Penn Manor dump which we estimated at 90,000 (give or take a few). Unlike any gull numbers I have seen elsewhere. With all those gulls, it almost seems disappointing that we "only" managed 17 Lesser Black-backeds, 7 Iceland, 1 Glaucous, and 2 Nelson's (Herring x Glaucous). The previous day at Florence, NJ, George Armistead and I had 1 Thayer's, 1 Iceland, and 60+ Lesser Black-backeds! Best bird that our group found was a Northern Shrike, an adult that baffled me as I heard its unique song coming from a woodlot edge. Once I tracked it down, the sitting bird cooporated for scope views for all 9 observers in the territory. The ohter interesting bird was a male American-like Wigeon with a totally cream-colored face. In all respects it looked like AMerican Wigeon except that the face area which is normally streaked heavily was entirely clean buffy-cream in color. There may also have been a bit more green on the rear of the head. Weird bird - hybrid with something? Good birding, Marshall Iliff miliff@aol.com Ocean City, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================