Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2003 14:36:49 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: 25 Red-necked Grebes in DC plus ospreys! Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hi all -- Barry and I went out this morning to see how may R-N Grebes we could scare up in D.C. Starting at the Thompson Boat House (2), then between Memorial Bridge and southern tip of Roosevelt Island (9), between Memorial Bridge and 14th street Bridge (5), Tidal Basin (3), Hains Point/Washington Channel (0), and Four-Mile Run/Dangerfield Island (6) we totaled 25. We also checked Gravelly Point, Belle Haven, and other overlooks with no success. The Potomac is running very high, cloudy and lots of debris and *most* of the grebes were hugging the shoreline. We also saw three ospreys in D.C. waters, one in the midst of building a nest on a day marker in front of the Potomack Landing Restaurant. The two Peregrines were sitting on the railroad bridge framework, but we saw no Merlins at Hains Point. Have they gone? Other birds of interest including a 3rd winter Lesser Black-backed Gull on the ice at the Tidal Basin, about 60 Common Mergansers off Belle Haven and along the airport shore, maybe 20 Red-breasted Mergs here and there, and a smattering of other ducks, Lesser Scaup and Ruddies the most numerous. However waterfowl numbers were quite low compared to past years. Gail Mackiernan Colesville, MD gail@mdsg.umd.edu ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================