Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 16:28:13 -0800 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Scott Baron Subject: East Potomac Park, DC, 1/26 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Yesterday morning, Sunday the 26th, I visited East Potomac Park (Haines Point) in DC. It was cold but the wind was almost nonexistant. The water is almost entirely frozen over, with a few spots of open water. I birded the western end of the park near the bridge as well as the point itself. Highlight was about 25 Black-crowned Night-Herons near and on the westernmost bridge at the edge of the park. Many were perched in a small tree there. Among the common gulls was a Ring-billed sized and shaped bird. It was mostly sitting on the ice near the bridges. It had an all dark bill that looked about Ring-billed sized, as not too thin or too heavy. It had pinkish legs and a BLACK tail with some white at the very edge of the outermost tail feathers. The body and wings were brown with some gray (on the back? darn, I can't remember?) and the head was white with just some brown smudges mostly on the forehead, nape and around the eye. A couple of other birders found this gull and we were watching it for a long time. Nothing pictured in the Sibley guide fits this bird. When I see a bird like that it really shakes my confidence in being able to ID anything. Species seen/heard: Gr. Blue Heron Blk.-cr. Night-Heron Can. Goose Mallard Gr. Scaup Com. Goldeneye Ring-billed Gull Herring Gull Lsr. Black-backed Gull? (possible 1st yr.) Gr. Black-backed Gull Rock Dove Fish Crow crow sp. Eur. Starling S. Baron Fairfax, Va. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================