Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 20:02:26 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Steve Sanford Subject: Caroline Longspurs & LBB Gull 3/24/01 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit One of the recent posters referred to a yearning for a Bufflehead in Caroline County. MY main nemesis in that county for years has been Common Goldeneye, along with Common Loon, both of which would be county-listing "close-outs" for me (i.e. that would be my final county of MD's 23 counties in which to tick off those species on my list.). Bufflehead, incidentally, I did manage to see one time about ten years ago on Williston Lake (Rt 16). So I made the obligatory rounds in Caroline County today (3/24) as I do 2-4 times a year, accompanied by Pete Webb. And as usual I did not find either of those targets, BUT... We had great looks at the nearly-full breeding plumage Lapland Longspurs on Sparks Road about 1/4 to 1/2 mile north of Stevenson Rd (all of which is about 3 miles NW of Ridgely). We definitely saw 3 males and one female and one female, and suspect the total was more like ten. They were fairly close to the road too. There were with maybe 100+ Horned Larks too. The Longspurs frequently made their distinctive chittering notes. I have never seen Lapland Longspurs in such great plumage. Thank you Danny Poet! The rest of the birding was fairly routine with the exception of a nice Lesser Black-backed Gull on the Choptank off Gilpin Point Road. Williston Lake had about 40 Ring-necked Ducks, which is about the most ducks I've ever seen there. Steve Sanford tanager@bcpl.net Randallstown MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================