Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 08:49:48 -0800 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Clive Harris Subject: Ocean City 3/28 In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20020328193357.03a87380@127.0.0.1> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I took a trip down to Ocean City and along the coast yesterday. Rather nice weather and light north winds added up to a pleasant day but with nothing unexpected showing up. There were 5 adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls in a gathering of around 300 gulls on a flooded golf course along Rte 50 (Deer Run was the name of the course I think, around 10 miles before Ocean City), the most I have seen together in the US. The gulls departed rather soon after I got there (it was 8 AM and they were probably off to a nearby dump for breakfast) so if there was anything else interesting in there I didn't see it. The inlet itself had very few sea ducks (a few Black and Surf Scoter and Long-tailed Duck), around 50 Purple Sandpipers and a rather splendid Great Cormorant in full breeding plumage. There was a slow but steady movement of Northern Gannets in groups of 2 or 3. Gulls were the expected species, with only a small number of Bonaparte's. Several Common Loons and around 40 Red-throated Loons were also there. The bay side between 3rd and 4th street had good numbers of Brant and Red-breasted Mergansers. The only other unusual gull of the day was not in Maryland but further north in Delaware: a 1w Black-headed Gull following a plough with Laughing and Ring-billed Gulls along Route 404. Nice for once to see this species behaving like a real gull over here rather than gadding around inlets with the Bonies. Regards Clive Harris Cabin John, Md __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Greetings - send holiday greetings for Easter, Passover http://greetings.yahoo.com/ ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================