Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 14:46:24 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Matt Hafner Subject: friday on the shore MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Zach Baer and I met up Hans Holbrook and Jim Brighton in Lower Worcester on friday. We started at Truitt's Landing where we were not disappointed. Pre-dawn, atleast 4 Sedge Wrens, and several Virginia Rails sounded off. Also a presumed King Rail was calling (very deep steady kek notes). An American Bittern and a Wilson's Snipe flew by as the light got better. Several Marsh Wrens made them known also as the sun came up. A Ross's Goose was spotted in with a large flyover Snow Goose flock. A real highlight was the female Common Merganser just off the boat launch. When hunters arrived, she flew over the marsh towards Rt. 12. Atleast 5 Greater Yellowlegs were flying around. On our drive to Vaughn North, we had several flocks of Juncos and Chipping Sparrows along with Thrasher and Fox Sparrow. We unsuccessfully searched for the LeConte's Sparrow at Vaughn. A few Green-winged Teal were in the pond and a large flock of Pipits flew over. We then headed towards OC stopping at Ironshire Station Rd where we searched through a large Horned Lark flock without finding Longspurs or Snow Buntings. Hans and Jim then left us and headed toward OC, while Zach and I went to Evans Rd. Along Evans, we had only 1 White-crowned Sparrow and a House Wren. We birded South Point and had another flyover Ross's Goose in thousands of Snow Geese. Not many landbirds around though. Then OC Inlet was extremely windy with lots of Gannets and Forster's Terns offshore. A Great Cormorant was hanging out on the far rocks and there was a large flock of Turnstones and Purple Sandpipers. West OC Pond had Coots, Ruddies, Pintail, Shoveler, Gadwall, Canvasback, Redhead, Lesser Scaup, and Tundra Swans. Ocean Pines added American Wigeon and Ring-necked Duck. There was also a Great Cormorant swimming around. We then birded Twilley's Bridge Road in Wicomico for landbirds picking up Hermit Thrush, Fox Sparrow, Creeper and Kinglets. The Salisbury Landfill had 1st and 2nd year Lesser Black-backs along with a 1st year Iceland Gull. We spent the rest of the day heading home searching for owls and longspurs with no luck. Throughout the day I was surprised by the abundance of Chipping Sparrows and Laughing Gulls. Chipping Sparrows seemed to be at every landbird stop with Juncos. Laughings were also at the Berlin Sewage Ponds, OC Inlet, Salisbury landfill, and a large number leaving the Easton Landfill at dusk. Matt Hafner College Park, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================