Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 14:25:12 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Matt Hafner Subject: Ocean City and coastal DE Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I tried to send this last night, but it didn't go through. Not many birds to add today. Best were 6 _hutchinsii_ Canada Geese in field on Rt. 309 in Queen Anne's county. Jim Stasz, Kevin Fehskens, and I birded mainly Worcester County, but took a side trip to Delaware. We began the morning at Vaughn Central with spectacular views of 4 Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrows and not-so-spectacular looks at 3 Saltmarsh. We looked for the LeConte's unsuccessfully. We then moved to Vaughn North where we walked the sparrow field west of the entrance road. The field was loaded with Savannah, Field, Chipping, White-throated, and Song Sparrows. We were able to dig up a Clay-colored and a Grasshopper. A quick search for the LeConte's here was also unsuccessful. We ended the morning with 14 sparrow species. A trip up to the inlet produced the hoped for Razorbill and 7 Harlequins (6m 1f). About 15 Bonies were present, but nothing else with them. The rest of the usual suspects were around. Next we took a trip up to DE hoping for White Pelican, Black-headed Gull, and Tufted Duck. The White Pelican was found with ease from the VFW on Cedar Neck Rd. A trip to Indian River produced a variety of ducks at the Burton's Island trail, but no Black-headed Gull. This was about my 12th dip on Black-headed at this location after one has been reported. To search for the Tufted, we decided to try Spring Lake first, just in case. We arrived to a large flock of Canvasback. An initial scan produced nothing of note. I then scanned the Ring-bills on the edge of the pond only to discover A BLACK-HEADED GULL!! Quite a surprise. This was a first-winter bird rapidly moving into adult plumage as it had an almost completely red bill. We then went to Silver Lake, but could not locate the Tufted Duck. Oh well 2/3. Back in MD, a scan of the gulls at Skimmer Island produced a nice 1st winter Lesser Black-backed Gull, but nothing else. At the inlet, only cold weather was present. A very nice day with 2 lifers for me and 3 for Kevin. ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================