Date: Sun, 13 May 2001 12:42:27 -0700 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Leslie Fisher Subject: Cecil- Big Day/May Count MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi All: A report on the 5/12 activities of myself and Marcia Whitmyre, on our annual Big Day/May Count combined event. Total species for day- 114 for me, perhaps a few higher for Marcia as she had a few birds I did not, and vice versa. Diversity of migrant warblers was poor. We began 6 AM at Fair Hill and found LOUSIANA WATERTHRUSH, WARBLING VIREO, VEERY, SWAINSON THRUSH, BOBOLINK, MEADOWLARK, SOLITARY SANDPIPER and YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. We met with Nick Merriman and another counter at 8 AM to cover Bethel WMA. We had good luck here, finding BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON, one adult and one first year bird, BLUE GROSBEAK, WILSON WARBLER, GLOSSY IBIS, BLACKPOLL WARBLER and NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH. We moved on the Courthouse Point with the same group to continue our census, and hit a big payoff of shorebirds, increasingly rare in Cecil, that included: LESSER/GREATER YELLOWLEGS, LEAST/WESTERN SANDPIPER, SPOTTED/SOLITARY SANDPIPER, SHORTBILLED DOWITCHER and SEMIPALM PLOVERS. Other nice finds were AMERICAN BITTERN, LITTLE BLUE HERON, YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT, BLUE GROSBEAK, RUDDY DUCK and PIED BILLED GREBE. Our census continued south of the Bohemia, leaving the other counters. On Fingerboard Schoolhouse Rd, we had stopped to look over a ploughed field, and a VESPER SPARROW obligingly showed itself, and we shortly after heard the tinkling of HORNED LARKS. The Earlville WMA had many FIELD SPARROWS. On the Elk River at Stemmers Run, 3 CASPIAN TERN flew by. At Grove Neck WMA we were disturbed to find that the impoundment had been cleared of a large swath of vegetation all the way around, in what looked like the results of a chemical spray. WARBLING VIREO and YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT were present here as well. The impoundment was empty except a pair of dreaded MUTE SWANS. On to Mt. Harmon Plantation, no new species, more WARBLING VIREO. At 6 PM we were back in Elkton to search for PROTHONOTARY WARBLER, heard earlier in the week at the Fish Hatchery portion of Meadow Park, and it did not disappoint. BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON was present again. On Blueball Rd we got PURPLE MARTIN at an established colony. Making a car drop at my home in the Calvert area, we rushed to cover some territory along the Susquehanna River before dark and were rewarded with CERULEAN WARBLER in the same location as last week. We continued the loop towards North East. At 8:45 we pulled up to a stop at Rt 40/ Rt 7 East, and barely had the window down when " CHUCK-WILLS-WIDOW " was heard loud and clear, same exact spot as last year. And finally, we were able to get WHIP-POOR-WILL in the ENSF with no problem. We were on the road from 6 AM to 9:30 PM, covered over 100 miles, did 10.5 hrs of census and walked over 15 miles by foot!! The only warblers we had, with few exceptions, were resident breeders. We heard no Yellow-throated Vireos all day. Leslie Fisher Cecil County ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================