Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2003 22:46:15 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Sigrid Stiles Subject: New garden bird MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The snow brought in a new bird to my weedy garden. I leave everything standing in the garden until spring, sparrows particularly find things out there all winter. The snow drove 2 Meadowlarks into the yard. On Sunday one was poking its head into all the crevices under the plants where snow had not accumulated. It must have found enough to eat as the next day another one had joined it. I also counted 102 Canvasbacks in the open water in front of the house in St. Jerome's Creek, when they flew another group joined them, they must have been further up the creek. Usually I don't see them there until March & this is by far the largest group we've had. Also some Ruddies & about 50+ Red-breasted Mergansers. It was an interesting weekend to do the GBBC. Over 300 Red-winged Blackbirds at the feeders, Robins denuded a holly of berries in one day & then they were gone. Fickle birds. Two Fox Sparrows on my upstairs deck, another first. They are regulars in the yard, but never up on the deck. Happy birding, Sigrid Stiles Dameron, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================