Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 17:51:13 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Paul Guris Subject: Nov 16 Lewes, DE Pelagic Results MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Well, the weather forecast looked horrible and many people were afraid we wouldn't be able to go, but other than a wet ride out, the day was not too bad. Winds were generally below 20 knots, the seas were 3'-5', and the rain held off until we turned and headed back home. Highlights of the trip were an extremely cooperative 1st winter Thayer's Gull, a nice count of Greater Shearwaters, and several good Pomarine Jaegers including a dark morph bird. The Thayer's was seen very well by all on board, and was kept at the back of the boat with chum for an extended period of time. Photos were taken and hopefully they'll turn out well. For you state listers, the first Greater Shearwater and the first 3 Kittiwakes were in DE waters. The first Lesser Black-backed was first found in DE waters but we dragged it behind us well into MD. The Thayer's Gull was firmly in MD waters as were all of the jaegers. If you are tracking numbers, it is difficult to say which of the last 20 or so Greater Shearwaters seen on the way in were in DE and which were in MD. Normally I'd expect my DE/MD split to be a bit better, but my notebook ended up getting soaked putting a "damper" on my accuracy. The official count is: 16 Common Loon 1 Red-throated Loon 81 Greater Shearwater 183 Northern Gannet 3 Pomarine Jaeger 2 Parasitic Jaeger 40 Bonaparte's Gull 1 Ring-billed Gull X Herring Gull 1 Thayer's Gull 2 Lesser Black-backed Gull X Great Black-backed Gull 9 Black-legged Kittiwake 27 Forster's Tern In addition, more loons, gannets, gulls, and terns, as well as both Surf and Black Scoter were seen while still within sight of land. On behalf of Mary Gustafson who organized this trip, the other leaders, as well as the Capt. and Mate, I'd like to thank everybody who participated. All or most of this same group will be on more trips in the future, and our schedule is available at the web site below. We hope to see you on future trips. -Paul Paul A. Guris See Life Paulagics P.O. Box 161 Green Lane, PA 18054 www.paulagics.com 215-234-6805 info@paulagics.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================