Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 07:48:13 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Paul Woodward Subject: McKee-Beshers WMA(Mont Co)3-2-03 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 2 March 2003 Finally after a 17 days I was able to return to my stomping grounds mainly to see if any birds were left. I knew I wouldn't have any problems with the roads, but I forgot about the parking lots which hadn't been cleared. Was able to park at Sycamore Landing. Hiked from there to Tenfoot Island(my normal census route) back through the fields to the impoundments, River Rd and Sycamore Landing Rd. Not a bad day- 48 species. New species for the year were a young male Northern Harrier working the fields, Killdeer(heard), and a Savannah Sparrow. Fair collection of waterfowl on the Potomac- 47 Canada Geese, 2 American Wigeon, 4 Black Ducks, 3 Bufflehead, 8 male goldeneyes, 3 Hooded Mergansers, and 24 Common Mergansers. Also at least 223 Ring-billed Gulls, but no grebes. Heard an Eastern Phoebe in area where one had been present earlier this winter. Good looks at 3 Hermit Thrushes feeding on top of the snow. Wrens are the main species here that should have been affected by the weather. Along the towpath I had 7 carolinas (3 less than my lowest count this winter along the same route) and 3 winters (2 less than my lowest winter count). White-throated Sparrows were still common(244) mainly in the food strips. Paul Woodward Fairfax City, VA 22032 grackling@att.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================