Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 20:43:11 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Matt Hafner Subject: Ruff, Avocet, DE birds, Dickcissels Comments: To: DE-BIRDS@pucc.princeton.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey all, My coworkers here and I just got back from a great afternoon of birding. As Jim Stasz posted for me. A Ruff and Avocet are in a pond on the SE corner of Kibler Rd. and Rt. 314 in Caroline County east of Greensboro. Also in the field is a wet grassy depression that many of the shorebirds were flying into and going out of sight. The Ruff did this for a while, but with patience it flew back and everyone got a better look. The bird is a female (Reeve) and had the distinctive Ruff "shape" (small head, big body, short bill). It was mainly brownish-gray with a scaly back. The avocet was sometimes difficult to pick out among the hordes of laughing gulls but was findable with a few scans. Plenty of other shorebirds to look through, had a possible Stilt Sand, but it flew while trying to get everyone on it. In other (DE) news, had the Uppies (6+) reported by Glen Lovelace on Hunting Quarter and Deep Grass Rds. Also the Red-headed Woodpeckers reported by him near Bridgeville. Thanks Glen!! The Federalsburg wetlands had more water than I've ever seen there and only 1 Killdeer. Tanyard had 1 calling Moorhen and few Least and Forester's Terns with a flyby Greater Yellowlegs. John Brown Rd. had 25 Killdeer, but nothing else. The Dickcissel here at Chino has finally attracted a mate and they have begun to build a nest!!! Is this the latest nesting record for Dickcissel in MD?? Matt Hafner Chestertown, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================