Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2003 22:29:57 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Paul P." Subject: Red-necked Grebes+ in DC Comments: To: Janni Ottavio MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This afternoon (Sunday, 3/2), 4 RED-NECKED GREBES continued at the mouth of the Tidal Basin (river side, not channel side). They were quite approachable, and I was about 30-50 feet from them. They were in the company of 4 HORNED GREBES, which provided a nice contrast. At the tip of Hains Point there was a MERLIN playing with several crows, providing a wonderful show. The crows wouldn't let the Merlin land in any of the big trees at the tip, keeping it up everytime it tried to land. While flying, the Merlin would then lay into the crows, showing them that it was clearly the master on the wing. It would then fly over to a tree, land for a few seconds, and then be kicked up by another crow. This continued for about 5+ minutes. Interestingly, the Merlin never actually hit the crows, as far as I could see, it just dove at them to scare them off. Obviously it wasn't quite working. Though not in Maryland or DC, it's so close that I have to report the following: at least 2 WILD TURKEYS were in the woods just off the George Washington Memorial Parkway. I saw them at the beginning of the off-ramp from the Parkway (northbound) to the inner loop of the Beltway (just before the American Legion Bridge). I only caught a quick glimpse as I was driving at the time, so there could have been more. As a follow-up to Rob Hilton's message from yesterday, there were 9 Red-necked Grebes on the river between the 14th St Bridge and Memorial Bridge. Along with the 2 I saw at the mouth of 4-mile run, that put my total at 11 yesterday. And as Rob reported, he & Lisa Shannon saw more farther down the river. Good birding, Paul Pisano cheep@erols.com Arlington, VA ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================