Date: Fri, 6 Dec 2002 15:29:46 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Patty Craig Subject: Scotland, MD Birds Comments: To: MD-SMAS MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi All, I went to Point Lookout late this morning to do some birding. The rain and sleet yesterday dampened my spirits so I did not venture out then making this my first look at what the storm brought in. I saw Marty Cribb and we birded the park and surrounding areas for the next few hours. The highlights of all the areas including PLSP: American Pipits were everywhere either singly or in small flocks possibly totaling a hundred. There were numerous ducks - all three scoters with good numbers of Black and Surf, Common Goldeneye, Greater Scaup, Ruddy Duck, Bufflehead, the Harlequin, Clangula hyemalis, 2 Northern Shovelers, 6 American Black Ducks, 2 Hooded Mergansers, Mallards and Red-breasted Mergansers. Other water species seen were Northern Gannet, Brown Pelican (Marty only), Forster's Tern, a handful of Bonaparte's Gulls, 1 Laughing Gull (Marty only), Common Loon and Horned Grebe, 2 Belted Kingfishers and the usual gulls. Along a private beach we saw 29 Sanderlings, Killdeer, a Least Sandpiper and a Purple Sandpiper. Sparrows were very scarce, but Marty saw 2 Fox Sparrows before my arrival. We found a road kill along Route 5, a Rusty Blackbird. Later further north on Route 5 was a large blackbird flock numbering in the tens of thousands with the majority Common Grackles, but also containing Brown-headed Cowbirds, Red-winged Blackbirds and Rusty Blackbirds (Marty only). A couple of Horned Larks were feeding with pipits at Point Lookout and there were many Eastern Meadowlarks and Mourning Dove on Long Neck Road plus 2 or 3 Bald Eagles and a Red-tailed Hawk. Oh, and Marty also saw a Cooper's Hawk earlier. All and all a good day with many species including 2 St. Mary's County year birds, the Purple Sandpiper and the Northern Shovelers. Good Birding, Patty Craig Dameron, MD pattycraig@mail.ameritel.net --- [This E-mail was scanned for viruses at mail.ameritel.net] ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================