Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2001 12:41:18 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Marshall Iliff Subject: Point Lookout CBC results MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MDOsprey, Matt Hafner, Jim Stasz, George Jett, Gwen Brewer, and I split up Pt. Lookout State Park yesterday for the Pt. Lookout CBC. Jim mostly "sea"watched, Matt and I did sparrows and hedgerows off Cornfield Harbor Rd., and George and Gwen covered the State Park campground and picnic areas. We dug out 92 species in our territory. Highlights for us were: * flyby female HARLEQUIN DUCK for me and Matt, seen at some distance as it headed north, then south, then north, and eventually disappeared beyond the horizon (it was slightly closer than that inititially). * ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER that popped up briefly for me but did not stay the 15 seconds that it took Matt to run over to me (directions below) * No fewer than five SEDGE WRENS - Matt found one in the small marsh off Cornfield HArbor Rd., and the rest were calling at dusk just right of the end of the pavement off Cornfield Harbor Drive, one of which Jim had locate in the dawn chorus. * One BARRED OWL that came in to spishing (!) for me and Matt and later called for George and Gwen - seems like a pretty surprising bird for the Pt. Lookout area. Any comments? They do disperse some in winter and show up in new areas. * One GREAT EGRET at Cornfield Harbor Drive marsh at dawn * One large swan among 4 Tundra Swans that flew past Cornfield Harbor Drive in the morning, seen by Jim, George, and Gwen. George got a photo - will it prove to be a Trumpeter? I went to the tally and the most interesting birds I recall were a Brown-headed Nuthatch slightly north of their normal range at Wilson Rd. (?) by Anne Bishop and Purple Finches attending Patty Craig's feeders in Patty's absence. I think the tentative count total was 101-104. The tally did not report each sector's numbers so I couldn't comment on species abundance at all. Generally, puddle ducks were mostly missed, diving ducks were in short supply (ca. 400 scaup at the point, but none elsewhere, Canvasback and Redhead may have been missed), Hermit Thrushes and Fox Sparrows were very scarce (our sector had 3 and 11 respectively), but sparrows were in excellent numbers (Matt and I alone had 215 Songs, 185 Swamps, and 140 Savannahs). At least one party (Kyle Rambo at the Elms) hadn't reported yet. Orange-crowned Warbler directions: Turn off Rte. 5 on Cornfield Harbor Rd. just north of Pt. Lookout SP. Go about 1 mi then left to the hunter's parking area and wlak into Jacob's Farm along the continuation of the dirt entrance road. Follow it all the way (1/3 mi) to the scrubby young pine woods, then go right until you find the road in which leads along the edge of larger, older pine woods. Follow this road past a 90 degree left turn and look for the bird at the 90 degree right turn. It was with kinglets. We'll all be interested to hear how any other counts went. Best, Marshall Iliff miliff@aol.com PS - I also did the Manassas Battlefield, VA, CBC, where the highlight apparently was a Clay-colored Sparrow that Todd Day spotted while he and I were birding a powerline near the battelfield. Other nice birds were Saw-whet and Long-eared Owls, both found in a hard-core nocturnal owling effort - more and more people are learning how to find these enigmatic species by night. ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================