Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 07:56:44 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Paul Woodward Subject: Sycamore Landing Area(Mont. Co) 1-21-03 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The unexpected snowfall this morning made my Towpath Count (from Sycamore Landing to Tenfoot Island) seem like a winter one for once. Also the ice floes in the river added to the feeling. Birds were very active and for the first time this winter I had a good variety of ducks. Highlights were 2 Wood Duck, 2 Am. Wigeon, 8 Bufflehead, 14 Common Goldeneye, 8 Common Mergansser, 6 Bonaparte's Gull (flying downriver), 7 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, an Eastern Phoebe, 17 Golden-crowned Kinglet,and 5 Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Also a 7 species woodpecker day. Usually I have trouble finding hairies, but I found 3 today, and heard a Red-headed Woodpecker north of milepost 27 in an area where I don't ever remember finding them previously. Another sign of winter was that I saw 19 Herring Gulls, but no ring-bills. I am not sure why this happens, but I have noticed it before. One of the reasons I am taking my winter counts this year to see if any species has decreased as a result of west nile virus. I haven't completely analyzed my results but so far no decreases have been noted. Paul Woodward Fairfax City, VA 22032 grackling@worldnet.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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================