Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 12:14:48 -0800 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: K Lambert Subject: March Wood-types Comments: To: SongStar MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi folks, On Saturday, 3 hardy souls from the Anne Arundel Bird Club met at 0500 at Wooton's Landing to search for Woodcock. Previous year's trips have resulted in wonderful views of displaying Woodcocks. This year, I was not as hopefull. With the recent frigid temperatures and heavy snowfall, I feared the demise of the local Woodcock population. At 0500, the skies were clear and we had great vews of many constellations. It was cold - in the low 20s. Open bodies of water were frozen. With the warm previous couple of days, the snow pack had melted significantly and we didn't have to trudge through any significant amounts of snow. We didn't hear anything but a couple of mallards quacking on our way to the fields where the Woodcock normally appear. After standing in the still silence, we managed to hear a distant Barred Owl. We were about to keep walking when we finally heard a Woodcock, then another, and another. Soon we heard them flying around and managed to see them once they got low enough. A few minutes later, we heard a Woodcock only a few feet from us. It was frustrating having one so close and we couldn't begin to see it. Where are the night vision goggles when you need them?! All told, there were probably at least a dozen individual birds putting on a very nice show. Shortly before dawn, the show was over as quickly as it had begun. As far as other birds are concerned, I was surprised by the number of Wood Ducks flying around. With little open water, I didn't think there would be much in the way of waterfowl, much less Wood Ducks. Happy birding, ===== Kathie Lambert kbert59 @ yahoo.com Harwood, MD __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more http://taxes.yahoo.com/ ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================