Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 21:06:50 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Pelican & tern banding MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline July 18, 2002, Thursday, I joined banders Dave Brinker and John Weske and 9 young women (one of them from Germany) who are variously biologists, refuge/park interns, etc., for a boat trip from Crisfield to the huge Brown Pelican colony at South Point Marsh, which is essentially an extension of Smith Island, MD, even though it lies a couple of miles south of the MD/VA line. About 1,000 pairs nest here. Today we banded 550 chicks. Earlier this year Dave, John et al. banded c. 425 chicks here. I saw 4 American Oystercatchers, incl. one that was a juvenile (told by its darkish bill). Dave and others have also banded c. 235 pelican chicks farther up the Chesapeake at Spring Island, Dorchester County, where there are about 260 nests. Also in Dorchester, on a small marshy tump just south of Barren Island these folks have found occupied pelican nests for the first time, some 51, and have banded 11 chicks so far. So counting the 1,000 nests at Fisherman's Island N.W.R., VA, that makes well over 2,300 Brown Pelican nests for the greater Chesapeake Bay area with c. 1,300 young banded. Pelicans are not banded on Fisherman's. Also today we saw a Caspian Tern near Ewell, in the MD part of Smith Island. John banded a few Double-crested Cormorant chicks today out of the scores present at South Marsh Point. DCCO also nest on Spring and Barren islands as well. We had the usual celebratory crabcake sandwich lunch at Ruke's in Ewell on Smith Island, where I saw 6 Yellow-crowned Night Herons. Other tern news. Earlier in July John Weske et al. banded 1,600 Royal and 6 Sandwich Terns on Fisherman's Island. John and his crew also banded 897 Royal Tern chicks on Fox Island, just south of Crisfield, but in Virginia, on July 2. In the Oregon Inlet area, North Carolina, (between Bodie and Hatteras islands) John Weske and about 30 helpers banded 1,550 Brown Pelican chicks in one day this summer, the most ever in one day. This species has a recovery rate of c. 10%, I believe, so there has got to be a lot of data accumulating from all those recoveries. Best to all.-Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA 19119-1225. 215-248-4120. Please, any off-list replies to: harryarmistead@hotmail.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================