Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 14:38:02 -0800 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Clive Harris Subject: Eastern Shore Landfills 3/1 In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Dear all I went for a trip to the Eastern Shore and the coast yesterday (my first this winter) and visited the landfills at Beulah, Snow Hill (Worcester) and Salisbury, in that order. Despite my best efforts I couldn't turn up any white-winged gulls. Beulah however, had a pretty good assortment otherwise, with 10 Lesser Black-backed Gulls (3x1st winter, 1x2nd winter, 3x3rd winter and 3, possibly 4, adults). The steaming, stinking piles of what looked like mulch, but surely was something much less benign, were particularly attractive to the gulls. The wet fields around Beulah also had around 1000 Canadas and 300 Snow geese (despite looking at around 10 flocks of Canadas throughout the day I could not find anything out of the ordinary save for a bizarre thick-necked hybrid which was probably a cross with a barnyard goose. No obvious Richardson's either). The Snow Hill landfill was very tame in comparison to Beulah, hardly a bad odor around, and unsurprisingly had only around 150-200 gulls. I arrived at the Salisbury landfill too late to get in, and viewed the birds from the road that runs past it. I turned up one 2nd winter Lesser Black-back, but nothing else out of the ordinary. In between, I fitted in a visit to Ocean City inlet and made 2 attempts, the second successful, to find Clay-Colored Sparrow on Evans Rd. The inlet was very quiet when I was there, save for a Great Cormorant and a Red-necked Grebe. The expected loons and all 3 scoters were also there. I met a birder on Evans Rd who had visited the inlet earlier in the day, and seen loads of Bonies, and Razorbill and Common Eider. None of those, unfortunately, were there when I got there. I also found a Red-necked Grebe at the small pond opposite the admin building at the Snow Hill Landfill. I thought this would be a sighting worth reporting but it seems rather humdrum given the dozens seen in Montgomery County over the weekend. I added one more to the day's total of Lesser Black-backs with a single 2nd winter at the lagoon at the jcn of Rtes 50 and 113 in Berlin. Good birding Clive Harris Cabin John, Md --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, and more ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================