Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:21:13 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Norman Saunders Subject: Possible Eurasian Collared Dove in Colesville MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Fran and I were driving back from the food store Saturday morning when we spotted a dove on the telephone wires along Good Hope Road at the intersection with Windmill Drive (about a quarter-mile south of the intersection of Good Hope and Briggs Cheyney Roads). The bird immediately struck us with its size, pale coloring, tail shape, and undertail markings. We've seen many of these birds in South Florida so the sense of familiarity was based on solid experience. Unfortunately, traffic was heavy so we continued home (about 1 minute), grabbed up scope, bins, and camera, and headed back. The bird was, unfortunately, no longer on the wire. We rode around the area for awhile then and several times later over the weekend looking for doves, either in concentrations or lone birds, but with no success. If you live in the Colesville area please keep your eyes peeled for a large pale dove, square-tailed, bright white undertail with some black markings near the base of the white area, and, of course, the band on the neck (the one field mark we didn't nail as we drove past). This bird is inevitable in Maryland sooner rather than later so if you do see it, get the word out and try to get some pictures. At the very least take some notes on what you see as you observe the bird! Best, Norm & Fran Saunders ================================= Norman C. Saunders Colesville, Montgomery County, Maryland marshhawk@att.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================