Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 14:28:16 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Paul Subject: "western" Willet in DC Comments: To: Voice , Janni Ottavio Comments: cc: "Iliff, Marshall" , Bob Ford MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This (Saturday, 5/26) morning I saw a "western" WILLET at the north end of the Hains Point Golf Course. I watched the bird from about 6:55 to 7:25 am. At 7:25 it took off, headed west towards the river, flew south a bit, and then turned back to the north and kept on going. It was an adult in alternate plumage. It had minimal barring on the flanks, and fine barring/speckling on the sides of the upper breast, but mostly white down the center of the breast. The bill was about 1.5 times the length of the head, and appeared long for a Willet. These features point to the western form of Willet, which is more expected in such inland locations. According to Rob Hilton, this is the first Willet in DC for about the last 10 years. To close-out yesterday's (5/25) DC sightings, there was an alternate plumaged HORNED GREBE on the Potomac opposite the FDR memorial, and 8 1st summer LAUGHING GULLS at the tip of Hains. Good birding, Paul Pisano Arlington, VA cheep@erols.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================