Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2003 16:57:27 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Jim Wilson Subject: Eastern Shore Back Roads MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This afternoon we did some slow driving around Queen Anne's and Caroline County. On the way to Sparks Road, we passed a field with about 30 Eastern Meadowlarks. There were Horned Larks just about everywhere. On Sparks Road, near Stevenson we had 3 Lapland Longspurs in a large flock of Larks and a few Savannaha Sparrows. In a few different places we found American Pippits, a flock of about six on the road to Adkins Arbouretum. On the big turn on Stevenson road, (before Sparks) we saw at least 8 Eastern Bluebirds, Yellow-Rumped Warblers, Juncos, Flickers, Cardinals, White-throated sparrows and a Hermit Thrush. A highlight of the trip was seeing a raptor fly in front of us at a T-intersection. We turned with it and followed it around 1/4 mile down the road, where it landed on a wire. We ID'ed it as a Merlin. We watched as it suddenly dove to the ground, grabbed a small rodent (mouse) and returned to wire. We watched it hack at it before it flew back up the road, dangling the mouse. Two minutes later we saw a kestrel dining on a phone line. -Jim Wilson Queen Anne's County Youth Birder wlsngang@intercom.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================