Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 20:49:41 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Marshall Iliff Subject: Re: Wht Morph Great Blue at Fort McHenry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MDOsprey, Hopefully all you listers and chasers noted this post. I REALLY hope someone can get out there to confirm and document this sighting, as it is a first for Maryland. The Records Committee will definitely be interested in reviewing this report. No, you can't count it as a new species on your list...yet...but that's no reason not to go look for it. It may very well be split in the near future and is a far rarer bird at these climes than Purple Gallinule (or even Black-bellied Whistling-Duck!). "White morph" Great Blue Herons, or Great White Herons, surely have their origins in South Florida. The southern subspecies "occidentalis" apparently has a dark morph in addition to the well-known white morph (=Great White Heron). Great White Heron ID is well treated in Sibley and other field guides, and the key field marks to separate from Great Egret are the yellowish leg color, thicker, longer bill, substantially larger overall size, and the presence of a short head plume. It has been recorded from MA, NY, NJ, PA, DE, and NC, but never VA or MD. The PA record was quite old, NJ had one last Aug, NY has several old records including one recent one on Staten Island. The MA and DE birds were the same in about 1993...so the total records for the Northeast numbers only about 7...now 8. Perhaps Jim Peters (or Gail) could post some more details about exactly where this bird was seen? I get back from 3 weeks in CA tomorrow morning and will head to Ft. McHenry first thing...will post any further news... Best, Marshall Iliff > Around noon today Jim Peters spotted a wht morph Great-Blue. Still there at > 4:15 PM > He describes the bird: legs pale, yellowish white, beak pale yellow > Jim doesn't have a scope & couldn't get a good look at the eye color. > Jim's leading his weekly Fort McHenry evening walk tonight beginning at > 6:00. > If possible he'd like to have some "expert(s)" take a look at the bird. > > Gail Frantz > Reisterstown, MD > guineabird@aol.com > *********************** Marshall Iliff miliff@aol.com Annapolis, MD ************************ ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================