Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 01:34:23 +0000 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: jim brighton Subject: weekend birding Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Friday Hans Holbrook and I spent most of the day birding Worchester Co. and ending the last hour of daylight on Deal Island. We hit Taylors Landing about an hour before sunrise and had two Barn Owls singing. For the next couple hours we birded with Matt Haffner and his friend Zak which Matt described in an earlier post. Leaving E.A. Vaughn Hans and I birded West Ocean City ponds with regular results. From Shanty Town we observed a male Harlequin Duck swimming under the bridge and at the inlet saw one Purple Sandpiper, Ruddy Turnstone, and Great Cormorant. From the Dock at Hooper's Restaurant we saw a few Dunlin with a lone White-Rumped Sandpiper. A flock of 25 Bonaparte Gulls were huddled on the north end of Skimmer Island. We than went down the ORV zone on Assateauge. There wasn't much lounging on the beach although we did see an amazing flock of 500-600 Red-Throated and Common Loon fly just off the beach heading south in under five minutes. From Assateague we worked our way to Deal Island where we picked up Tricolored Heron and Least Sandpiper. On Saturday we spent the entire day birding in Dorchester Co. On Hoopers Island we saw Goldeneye, R-B Merganser, Oldsquaw, and lots of Bufflehead and Common Loons. We also counted 24 Horned Grebes. From there we went to Blackwater with not much seen other than large flocks of Pintail, Shovelers, and other Anus species. We then went to the Hurlock area where we were much more successful. Around Behula Dump we saw one First year Iceland Gull, a first year Thayers Gull, a first year Lesser Black-backed, one third year Lesser Black-backed, and two adult Lesser Black-backs. At the Hurlock sewage lagoons there was a large flock of Snow geese where we observed two immature Ross' Geese with one being a dark phase bird. This bird was extremely dark, closer to black than brown. There were also a flock of 16 Bonaparte Gulls present. Today we hit Pickering Creek around 8:00 am and didn't see much because of the gale force winds that were blowing although there were five Snipe sitting in the impoudments. Overall Hans and I saw 119 species in a little more than two days. Unfortunately we were without a scope or our numbers would have probably been higher. Hans is seemingly going through Swallow Hysteria. He wanted me to make sure I commented on the large flock of Tree Swallows we saw on Assateauge and also smaller numbers at Berlin Sewage Ponds and Deal Island. Much to Hans and lesser to my discontent we ONLY saw Tree Swallows. The following is our weekend comp. list. If there is any questions please contact Hans or myself. Common loon Red-throated Loon Pied-billed Grebe Horned Grebe Northern Gannet Great Cormarant Double-crested Cormorant Am. Bittern Black-crowned Night-heron Tricolored Heron Great Egret Great Blue Heron Tundra Swan Mute Swan Canada Goose Snow Goose Ross' Goose Brant Mallard Black Duck Gadwall Green-winged Teal Am. Wigeon Pintail Northern Shoveler Ruddy Duck Wood Duck Canvasback Redhead Ring-necked Duck Gr. Scaup Ls. Scaup Black Scoter Surf Scoter Harlequin Duck Oldsquaw Cm. Goldeneye Bufflehead Cm. Merganser Red-breasted Merganser Hooded Merganser King rail Virginia Rail Killdeer Blk-bellied plover Ls. Yellowlegs Gr. Yellowlegs Snipe Woodcock Ruddy Turnstone Purple Sandpiper Dunlin Sanderling Least Sandpiper White-rumped Sandpiper Laughing Gull Bonaparte's Gull Ring-billed Gull Herring Gull Iceland Gull Thayers Gull Ls. Blk-backed Gull Gr. Blk-backed Gull Forster"s Tern Turkey Vulture Black Vulture Bald Eagle Harrier Red-tailed Hawk Kestrel Merlin Bobwhite Turkey Rock Dove Mourning Dove Horned Owl Barn Owl Kingfisher Red-bellied Wdpkr Flicker Sapsucker Downy Wdpkr Hairy Wdpkr Pileated Wdpkr Horned Lark Tree Swallow Blue Jay Am. Crow Fish Crow Tufted Titmouse Car. Chickadee Brn-hd. Nuthatch Carolina Wren Sedge Wren Marsh Wren Gld-crwn. Kinglet Rby-crwn, Kinglet Bluebird Robin Mockingbird Thrasher Pipit Waxwing Starling Pine warbler Yellow-rumped Warbler Cardinal Towhee ]Savannah Sp. Song Sp. Field Sp. Chipping Sp. Junco Wht-throated Sp. Fox Sp. Swamp Sp. Meadowlark Rd-winged Blkbrd Cowbird Cm. Grackle Boat-tld Grackle House Sp. Goldfinch House Finch Jim Brighton jdbrighton3@hotmail.com Trappe, Md _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================