Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2001 18:01:31 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Stan Arnold Subject: Snowy Owl, etc. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Folks, Following an excellent year-opening bird walk led by Bonnie Ott in Howard Co. (a dozen and a half Redheads, a Common Goldeneye, and three Am. Tree Sparrows at Centennial Lake were the highlights for me), I headed out to Frederick Co. to get the new year off to a good start. When I arrived around 3:30 p.m., the SNOWY OWL, was being viewed by numerous birders, as it sat in the field on the north side of Oland Rd., about 50 yards from road's edge. This time it was a bit closer to Oland's intersection with Rte 85 (Buckeystown Pike) than with the New Design Rd. intersection. Following some good looks at the owl, I went north on New Design Rd., about 1/4 mile from Oland Rd. Here I looked over the field to the east, (towards the farm house with school bus in front), and waited for the lark flock to take flight. Within a few minutes, the flock appeared from behind a ridge, circled overhead numerous times, then put down in great postition for several of us to pick out four SNOW BUNTINGs and at least one LAPLAND LONGSPUR from among the hundred or so HORNED LARKs. So, the new year begins with some good birding, and (despite the wind) some nice birding weather. Stan Arnold Anne Arundel Co. blackrail@earthlink.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================