Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 21:39:52 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "George M. Jett" Subject: Re: Red-Necked Grebe off Roosevelt Island Comments: cc: Miliff@aol.com MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Jed, et. al. According to The Birds of North America, No. 465, the Red-necked Grebe (RANGER) winter range is primarily on marine waters along Atlantic and Pacific Coast, and to a limited extent, on Great Lakes. The last time we had an invasion of RANGER was maybe 1994 or 96. That year the Great Lakes froze over, much like they may have this winter with the colder than usual weather. The cold weather may move more birds further south and out to marine waters. In severe winters, irruptions of RANGER into inland and coastal areas south and east of the Great Lakes may indicate that the numbers wintering in the Great Lakes may be in the thousands. This is poorly understood. When they start to migrate north, in late February through March, is when we are likely to find the birds in our region. Most birds that overwinter in the Atlantic, concentrate around the Bay of Fundy. They can be found to South Carolina, but this is unusual. Likely they move south when the weather up north is extremely cold for extended times, like this winter. There could be several waves of animals though March and into early April. They could show up at any larger body of water, so look every where, and report all you find to miliff@aol.com. Gwen and I quickly checked a couple spots in Charles County today with no success. Loons are on the move also. I had six at Cobb Island. Other birds along the Potomac River from Popes Creeks south to Cobb Island were Tundra Swan, Long-tailed Duck, Common Goldeneye, Red-breasted Mergansers, Bufflehead, Greater and Lesser Scaup, Rudy Duck, Mallard. The only Grebe we had were about 10 Horned Grebe along the way. No Osprey are in yet where we checked but they should be by the weekend. I hope this helps. George Jett P.S. One first year male Baltimore Oriole is in Eutaw Forest, off Rt. 229 in Charles Co. The bird was reported to have been there since November. I will check this out next Saturday. I did see photos to identify the bird for the property owner. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jed Kusterer" To: Sent: Sunday, March 02, 2003 7:12 PM Subject: [MDOSPREY] Red-Necked Grebe off Roosevelt Island > Hello all, > Madaline and I walked Roosevelt Island (Potomac River, Washington, DC) > today (3/2/03). At 1pm we walked out to the rocks from the north end of > the swamp boardwalk and surveyed East over the main body of the river. > About 25 meters from shore we saw a Red-Necked Grebe in winter plumage > with only a slight trace of rust on the breast. We got very good looks > at close range. The long, thick, mostly yellow bill, white "ear" patch, > size and shape were all observed. Having seen hundreds of RNGR on Lake > Superior I'm sure of the ID. > At home, I compared Sibley and National Geographic for range maps. > Interesting that Sibley restricts the wintering range to New England > Coast with many vagrant sightings South through Maryland. Nat. Geo. > extends the wintering range through the Chesapeake. _Field list of the > Birds of Maryland_ (Iliff et al., 1996) shows RNGR regular in Maryland > only in late Feb and March with PG and MO counties NOT having a sighting > every year. Of course, this bird was seen in DC proper. I guess the MD > surge in March is migration related, rather than wintering. > Someone commented before on dozens of RNGR seen apparently wintering on > a lake in W. Virginia. That seems like a significant find! I think > there is still alot of confusion amongst experts about the population > numbers, breeding grounds, migration routes AND wintering grounds of the > RNGR. > Thousands of birds are recorded migrating over Whitefish Point Bird > Observatory on Lake Superior each Fall. Where do they go? It is thought > that most go to the New England coast. Since they prefer deep, open > water for wintering, I suppose it is possible that larger numbers than > anyone yet knows winter in the Chesapeake. Does anyone have more > information about this? > Regards, > Jed Kusterer > Washington, DC > > ======================================================================= > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= > ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================