Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2001 15:10:31 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: 5-6 Little Gulls today @Back River Hi all -- Barry and I just got back from Back River, and it was a very good day. We first went down to the river at the site below the bridge at the closed restaurant parking lot (which DOES exist -- just drive down to water's edge behind Royal Farms, *past* garages -- there is a sign, Bridge Restaurant) and saw 1-2 first winter birds flying out with the Bonies. Pete Webb and a friend drove up just as the birds appeared to fly back upriver, so we all went to Diamond Point (access from Diamond Pt. Rd., across wet grassy field). There we hit the jackpot with at least two first winter birds, two winter- plumaged adults, and one summer-plumaged adult -- both flying around and giving brilliant looks, and also sitting on the mudflat, also giving excellent looks at all features of structure and plumage. There *may* have been three immature birds there today. Barry reckons that, based on plumages, he has seen 9 or 10 different individual Little Gulls this year on Back River. Only one of these has actually been inside the plant, however. The only down side is that the Franklin's Gull reported earlier in the week was not seen, and we had only two Laughing Gulls (inside the WWTP); otherwise the usual assortiment of gulls and a nice summer-plumaged Caspian tern gave us a flyby. Cheers, Gail Mackiernan and Barry Cooper Colesville, MD Colesville, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================