Date: Sat, 6 Jan 2001 20:38:53 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Peter Webb Subject: Baltimore Harbor Christmas Bird Count report MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Baltimore Harbor Christmas Bird Count report Saturday, December 23. 90 species (low), 22 observers in 11 parties. Sorry it took so long to post this, but a couple of territory reports were slow in coming in, and I held off 'til I could see what was found out there. As everyone else has reported with their Counts, the near universal freezout of still waters has put a bite on the usual waterfowl numbers. We failed to repeat last year's sightings of Merlin; while some have been reported around DC and a number during the fall at the Federal Hill and Inner Harbor, none were tallied for the Count. We did get one Black Vulture, previously tallied just once in 1994. The observers at Fort Smallwood were kicked out of the park at 4 pm, before most of the cormorants had arrived at the rocks between Ft. Smallwood and Riviera Beach (pronounced "Ri-VEER-uh" by the locals), and couldn't get close enough to the rocks to pick out the Great Cormorant(s) among the D.C. Cormorants there at dusk. The two Pintail were in a back corner of Dundalk Marine Terminal. The 7 Shovelers were at Locust Point. The Redheads were in a cove in the south harbor opposite Ft. McHenry. The two Peregrine Falcons counted were at Hart-Miller Island. One Virginia Rail was at North Point State Park, off North Point Road near Fort Howard. The other two were at Hart-Miller Island. Single Great-horned Owls were found in a secluded neighborhood off Ritchie Highway just inside the Beltway and at Hart-Miller Island, which had the two Short-eared Owls. While Snowy Owls have been reported on the Island in the past, we have yet to tally one for the Christmas Count and none have been reported yet this winter. The lone Sapsucker was in the Holly Neck area near Rocky Point State Park. The Thrasher was in the Bowley's Quarters area between Middle River and Bird River. The Pine Warbler was with a flock of Myrtles ("Yellow- rumped" officially) at the Back River Treatment Plant off Eastern Avenue just outside the Beltway. The Yellowthroat was in the cove opposite Ft. McHenry. Single Field Sparrows were found at Holly Neck and at Fort McHenry. The five White-crowned Sparrows were on Hart-Miller Island, where they are not regularly found. The 80 Snow Buntings counted there, however, are routine on the Island, Baltimore County's reliable winter location for them. Below are the totals: Baltimore Harbor Christmas Bird Count Sat. 12/23/99 SPECIES P-B Grebe 4 Horned Grebe 1 D-C Corm. 40 G B Heron 38 Black Vulture 1 Turkey Vult. 9 Can. Goose 724 M Swan 23 Gadwall 60 Wigeon 17 Black Duck 110 Mallard 568 Northern Pintail 2 Northern Shoveler 7 Canvasback 3456 Redhead 25 Ring-necked 5 L Scaup 1070 Scaup sp 1100 Bufflehead 232 Com. Goldeneye 104 Hooded Merg 48 Common Merg 21 Red-br. Merg 23 Ruddy Duck 357 Bald Eagle (adult) 7 (immature) 2 Bald Eagle (TOTAL) 9 Harrier 5 Sharp-shin 6 Cooper's 2 Red-should. 2 Red-tail 19 Kestrel 4 Peregrine 2 Pheasant 8 Virginia Rail 3 Coot 37 Killdeer 17 Bonaparte's Gull 106 Ring-billed 2555 Herring Gull 91 Great Black 59 Pigeon 603 Mourning Dv 150 Great Horned Owl 2 Short-eared Owl 2 Belted Kingf 8 Red-bellied 25 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 1 Downy 42 Hairy 4 Flicker 13 Blue Jay 86 Crow 202 Fish Crow 4 Crow Sp. 103 Car. Chickadee 136 Titmouse 78 W Nuthatch 7 Brn Creeper 1 Car. Wren 58 Winter Wren 2 G C Kinglet 14 R C Kinglet 15 Bluebird 2 Hermit Thrs 20 Robin 259 Mockingbird 47 Thrasher 1 Starling 1938 American Pipit 51 Cedar Waxwing 75 Pine Warbler 1 Myrtle Warb 22 Com. Yellowthroat 1 Towhee 11 Tree Sparrow 14 Field Sparrow 2 Savannah Sparrow 18 Fox Sparrow 14 Song Sp. 349 Swamp Sp. 76 White-throat 550 White-crowned 5 Junco 314 Snow Bunting 80 Cardinal 167 Red-winged 689 C. Grackle 216 Cowbird 3 House Finch 106 Goldfinch 56 Eur. House Sparrow 240 SPECIES 90 BIRDS 17853 Observers 22 Parties 11 START TIME 6:40 am STOP TIME 5:00 pm Total Hours 51 Foot Hours 44 Car Hours 7 Total Miles 145 Foot Miles 33 Car Miles 112 Min Temp 10 Max Temp 28 Min Wind 0 Max Wind 7 MPH Direction (NW?) Sky AM Mostly Sunny Sky PM Mostly Sunny Snow Cover 1/2 inch Still Water Frozen Moving Water Partly Open Observers Dan Cockerham Ralph Cullison Shirley Geddes Wayne Gordon Kevin Graff Peter Lev Taylor McLean Jim Peters Barbara Ross James Ross (son) Gene Scarpulla Kevin Smith Debbie Terry David Walbeck Pete Webb (compiler) Pete Webb Baltimore, Md (USA) pwebb@bcpl.net (home, after 6) pew@niroinc.com (work, 830-5 M-F) ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================