Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2001 15:43:15 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Maurice Barnhill Subject: Re: poor mans pelagic trip from Ocean City, Md MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Marty, I hope you enjoyed the fishing. It does take a lot of trips to see most of the pelagics. The best birding is usually at the edge of the continental shelf, which is more like 60-70 miles offshore than 30. You can find Kittiwake, Alcids and, less commonly, some of the other pelagics at about 30 miles, but further out is better. This time of year you could have found some of Kittiwake, Puffin, Razorbill, Thick-billed Murre, Dovekie, Fulmar, and Jaegers. It is too soon for Shearwaters (other than Fulmar) and Storm-petrels here. Fulmar and Jaegers are usually pretty far offshore. I'm a little surprised you had so few Gulls, but I may just not be remembering March very well. I haven't been on a lot of March trips. You had a good number of landbirds. It isn't unusual to see landbirds offshore, especially during migration, but not usually so many, especially given the early date and the light and easterly winds. If you can find it, Richard Rowlett's Observations of Marine Birds and Mammals in the Northern Chesapeake Bight, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service report FWS/OBS-80/04 (Feb. 1980) will give you an idea what to expect offshore. It is dated because it was written before many of Rich's trips and all of Ron Naveen's and Gene Scarpulla's, but it contains enough data to pretty well determine the abundances offshore. Any library that collects US government reports will have it, perhaps on microfilm. This means one of the larger University libraries, I expect. You can also get a little information about what to expect from the Birds of Delaware. The code is that "mid-Atlantic region" mostly translates to "offshore from Ocean City," since there have been so few birding trips in Delaware waters. There is no essential, known, difference between abundances off Delaware and off Maryland, but the situation off Maryland is much better known. marty cribb wrote: > > Hello Everyone, The results of my attempt to combine a fishing trip with my son who is a non-birder and a pelagic bird trip were mixed to say the least. With about 60 people aboard I was the only birder /fisherman and my observations were very unexpected (or so I thought). The weather was early AM fog which finaly lifted around 10AM and limited visibility to about 1/4 mile. Wind very light from the NE no waves however a moderate groundswell from winds earlier in the week. All in all good conditions for both fisherman and yours truly. Now for the sightings and I will also give miles from shore as they made the sightings significant in my mind anyway. HERRING GULL 1, 3 miles AMERICAN ROBIN 22, 8 miles, JUNCO 2, 22 miles (they kept circling the boat) NORTHERN CARDINAL 1, 17 miles NORTHERN FLICKER 1, 35 miles RED-THROATED LOON 3 GREAT CORMORANT 1 DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT 1 COMMON LOON 1 NORTHERN GANNETT 7 BONAPARTES GULL 1 and finaly the strangest of all was the BROWN-HEADED CO! ! WBIRD 1, > 35 miles offshore who then landed on the boat and rode back with us to Ocean City. As soon as the bird sighted the high-rises he flew from the boat and made a quick flight to shore. On the way west on Rt 50 this morning about 7:30 at mile marker 120 I did observe 60+ CATTLE EGRET at the farm that has beef cattle in the large pasture. I expected to do better on the pelagic species then I did but maybe I need to try in January or February next time. Good Birding, Marty Cribb, Smith Island, Md > > ======================================================================= > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= -- Maurice Barnhill (mvb@udel.edu) Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716 ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================