Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 22:35:04 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Matt Hafner Subject: Assateague Island Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Today, I tagged along on an Environmental Science field trip to Assateague Island with my girlfriend. The morning started off nice with a singing Prairie Warbler on campus. The visitor center at Assateague had atleast 4 singing White-crowned Sparrows and about 10 total. While waiting for the ranger to open up the gate heading north on the island, I saw what appeared to be an empid flycatching just outside the van window. I had about 45 seconds to view this bird. The main downside about being on this type of field trip is that I wasn't able to chase down birds like this. Knowing that it is really early for any empid, I tried to get down all field marks I could and this bird seemed to be an adult "Traill's" Flycatcher. While on the beach walk with the ranger, about 50 Gannets in all plumages, fed close off shore providing excellent views. Royal Terns were also plentiful. The highlight here however was when Kim, got my attention away from the ranger in time to watch 9 Whim! ! brels fly south down the beach. Bayside was crawling with Common Yellowthroats, my first for the spring. Also, to tie in with my empid sighting, a Brown Thrasher at Bayside was mimicking the Willow Flycatcher's "fitz-bew" song. Heron numbers were really low with only 1 Little Blue on the life of the marsh trail. A flock of about 30 Brant were still present just of the bay overlook on the same trail. Not much else around today, I guess it would have been better if we had gotten there earlier. Oh, before I forget there were ZERO pelicans. Matt Hafner College Park, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey =======================================================================