Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 03:37:49 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Norm Saunders Subject: Worcester coastal sightings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Here are our sightings from the Ocean City area on Saturday 23 November. The inlet remained disappointing. Very high winds and the accompanying confused seas didn't help but the work on the south jetty is probably going to make birding for sea ducks in this area a lot harder now. The jetty has been raised a good 4-5 feet and seeing the ducks resting in its lee is now virtually impossible. Anyway, here are the birds we saw at the jetty: Common Loon 3 Northern Gannet 55 Great Cormorant 1 Double-crested Cormorant 5 Ruddy Turnstone 35 Sanderling 25 Purple Sandpiper 6 Laughing Gull 10 Ring-billed Gull 100 Herring Gull 30 Great Black-backed Gull 45 Forster's Tern 8 Rock Dove 75 European Starling 15 There were long skeins of scoter flying much too far offshore to identify. The gannets continue very close inshore this year giving great looks. The sanderlings were scattered over the point parking lot at the various puddles-weird. Finally, Red-throated Loons and Bonaparte's Gulls remain unseen here (by us) this fall. The tide was getting on toward high when we got to Hoopers to view Skimmer Island but here is what we saw in that locale: Common Loon 1 Double-crested Cormorant 2 Mallard 5 Bufflehead 50 Greater Yellowlegs 2 Sanderling 30 Laughing Gull 10 Ring-billed Gull 25 Herring Gull 20 Great Black-backed Gull 10 Forster's Tern 25 Belted Kingfisher 1 American Robin 15 House Finch 1 West Pond, along Golf Course Road north of Rt. 50 yielded a nice selection of waterfowl: Great Blue Heron 1 Canada Goose 250 Tundra Swan 25 Gadwall 20 American Wigeon 25 American Black Duck 15 Mallard 100 Northern Shoveler 35 Northern Pintail 8 Green-winged Teal 10 Canvasback 15 Redhead 3 Ring-necked Duck 1 Bufflehead 1 Ruddy Duck 20 Belted Kingfisher 1 Finally, birding in the neighborhood around our house, we located the following birds on Saturday and Sunday. Note the flyover Red-throated Loons-are they arriving at last? Red-throated Loon 7 Double-crested Cormorant 1 Great Blue Heron 2 Turkey Vulture 2 Canada Goose 25 Mallard 12 Ruddy Duck 5 Osprey 1 Sharp-shinned Hawk 1 Red-tailed Hawk 1 American Coot 1 Ring-billed Gull 9 Herring Gull 8 Great Black-backed Gull 8 Mourning Dove 3 Belted Kingfisher 1 Red-bellied Woodpecker 1 Downy Woodpecker 1 Hairy Woodpecker 1 Northern Flicker 1 Blue Jay 1 Fish Crow 3 Tree Swallow 8 Carolina Chickadee 3 Tufted Titmouse 2 Brown-headed Nuthatch 4 Carolina Wren 1 Eastern Bluebird 1 American Robin 12 Brown Thrasher 1 European Starling 3 Yellow-rumped Warbler 1 Fox Sparrow 2 Song Sparrow 1 White-throated Sparrow 6 Dark-eyed Junco 4 Northern Cardinal 2 Red-winged Blackbird 2 American Goldfinch 3 House Sparrow 3 Best wishes to all of you for a happy, safe, and birdy Thanksgiving! Norm & Fran ============================ Norman C. Saunders Colesville, Montgomery County, MD marshhawk@att.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================