Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 09:41:27 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Lovelace, Glen" Subject: Elliot's Island Rd 7/4 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Hello All, My wife and I drove down to Elliot's Island yesterday morning in search of Barn Owl and found success. We found an active nest box that is easily visible from the road. Location - where the road makes the double curves and meets the shore of Fishing Bay, there is a nest box in the marsh on the left a few hundred feet south of the second curve. On the way south, we found one downy chick hunkered in the back corner of the box. It was deep in the shadows and difficult to see much details. On the way back north, we stopped again and found that the chick had been joined by a parent. The adult was sitting much closer to the entrance hole and allowed some wonderful scope views. It preened, stretching out its wing; it peeked out of the entrance hole and looked around; then it proceeded to tear up lunch to feed to junior. While watching the owl, a Saltmarsh Sharp-Tailed Sp sat on 3 different elevated perches allowing scope views on each perch. There must have been something wrong with that one :) We saw several others throughout the length of the road. Other sightings were a Royal Tern and the Elliot's boat ramp, a Little Blue Heron (imm) in a group of 25 or so Snowies, 3 Green Herons and several VA Rails heard. We looked for Moorhen and Stilt but missed both. The only shorebirds were 3 Greater and 1 Lesser Yellowlegs and 6 Least Sand. Coming north through Dorchester Co., I heard several Grasshopper Sparrows and a Bobwhite on Linkwood Rd. In Caroline Co, we had 7 Least Terns at the end of Hog Island Rd. Tanyard marsh was empty except for a few Forster's Terns. Good Birding, Glen Lovelace III Seaford, DE ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================