Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 21:04:18 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: David Mozurkewich Subject: PG Shorebirds and waterfowl In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20010727171349.00a28d70@pop.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I went looking for shorebirds this morning (Friday, July 27) hoping the spate of bad weather last night dropped something of interest into the area. I checked two locations in PG county surrounding Mike Bowen's DC report; Bladensburg Waterfront Park (formerly Bladensburg Marina) on the Anacostia River at Route 450 and the mouth of Oxen Run at the north-east corner of Oxen Cove. Numbers and variety were up at both locations. My numbers and species list were similar to Mike's. I added Semipalmated Plovers, 2 in Oxen Cove, 1 in Bladensburg. Though the yellow book lists them as "less-than-annual" in PG county, I find them regularly here, sometimes in numbers. But the most interesting birds were waterfowl. Today's haul includes 2 Common Mergansers at Bladensburg and a hybrid goose at Oxen Cove. The Mergansers, being a male and a female, were clearly not the same two birds that remained at Broad Creek into June as they were both adult males. The goose was an accident. I usually don't look at geese in the summer but it stuck its head into my scope's field of view as I was watching a very bright juvenile Semipalmated Sandpiper. The Goose was apparently a Canada x White-front having both the cheek patch and the white-front of its parents, though both muted. It also had orange legs and a pink bill, somewhat stubbier than the Canada's it was associating with. Its black neck faded smoothly into its gray breast and there were no black bars on its belly. This is the third hybrid of this type I've seen in the county this year. The marsh vegetation at Broad Creek has grown to the point where a short visit is now quite an expedition, especially considering the number of now hidden, knee-deep (carefully measured) holes along the river bank. Besides the always enjoyable but distant shorebirds are numbers of Great Egrets, with a high count of 14, and an adult Tundra Swan present on all 3 visits since July 1. On another note, I've been hearing many Bobwhite recently. Compared to the spring, are they more vocal in mid-summer, or do my increased records reflect a change in the habitats I visit at different seasons? Dave David Mozurkewich Seabrook, PG MD USA mozurk@bellAtlantic.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================