Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 16:14:01 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Jim Stasz Subject: Atlas: Owling in Somerset County 2/3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Folks! I have been owling most weekends and a few weekday evenings to add Great Horned Owls to the Atlas. Sunday morning I left Irish Grove at midnight and started to cruise the back roads. Apparently this is the courting season on the Lower Eastern Shore. Here is the tally for Great Horned Owls: Quad/Quater Block/code/notes Princess Anne/SE2/X/ 1 calling Dividing Creek/CE1/X/ 2 calling Dividing Creek/CE2/X/2 calling Dividing Creek/SW3/P/ pair duetting Dividing Creek/SW4/P/ pair duetting Kingston/CE1/X/ 1 calling Kingston/CE3/X/ 1 calling Kingston/SW2/P/ pair duetting Kingston/SW3/P/ pair duetting Kingston/SE4/P/ pair duetting Pocomoke City/NW2/P/ pair duetting Pocomoke City/NW3/P/ pair duetting Pocomoke City/NW4/P/ pair duetting Saxis/NW1/P/ pair duetting Saxis/NW2/P/ pair duetting Saxis/NE1/P/ pair duetting Saxis/NE2/P/ pair duetting Saxis/NE3/P/ pair duetting All told, between midnight and 5:30 AM I heard more than 30 Great Horned Owls! No tapes were used. If I heard a distant owl, I drove and listened again to triangulate where it was calling from. Additionally, I had 4 stops where Eastern Screech-Owls were calling on their own. I tried for Barred Owls at 4 locations where I know they nest, played lots of tape, but only had one pair respond. I suspect it is still a bit early for them. My recommendation is to start listening right now for Great Horned Owls in your Atlas Block. Good Birding! Jim Jim Stasz North Beach MD jlstasz@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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================