Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2001 21:36:57 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Mark Hoffman Subject: Hoffman-Iliff II MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For newer MDOsprey subscribers, a little history is needed. As you may remember, my good friend Marshall Iliff stripped me of my "Mr. Worcester County" title some time ago, in a "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" style-quiz in which I failed to guess that Hooded Merganser was the latest addition to the Worcester breeding avifauna. Needless to say, I have wanted the title back ever since. Being know as "former Mr. Worcester County" just doesn't have the same ring of authority. Remember Ali-Frazer II, or as I just saw promoted on cable, "Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla"?? It's the same deal here. A battle of the titans, mental-migets, guys with too much time on their hands, call it what you will. I'm throwing down the gantlet. Here's the test: Today, 12/30, during a half-day of birding at Vaughn WMA/South (after the Chincoteague CBC yesterday-that will be a separate post when the numbers are crunched), I observed a species new for my Worcester December list. In fact, it was the first time I had observed this species at all during winter in Worcester, or Maryland for that matter. It has not been recorded in the Maryland sector of the Chincotague CBC (at least since 1991 when we began keeping detailed records), so it is an addition to the cumulative list as a "count week" bird. Michael O'Brien and Louise Zemaitis covered this area yesterday but missed it. (Given that I so rarely best Michael I don't think he'll mind me mentioning this. After all, they did find a Bell's Vireo for the Cape May count!! I need to tell them to keep some of their powder dry for Maryland..) Other hints related to the bird included: 1) it is passerine, 2) no one, except maybe you Marshall, would be interested in chasing it, but you're not doing "big Januarys" any more, and 3) it is not likely to die from cold weather, lack of insects, etc. That's it. I know Marshall's down in Baja doing a count with a some of this West Coast friends, so I'll stay quiet until he returns to the electronic world (Dave and Mary Ann, you keep your lips sealed also). To the weakest link! Mark Hoffman Sykesville, MD Mhoff36100@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================