Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 18:54:42 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Norm Saunders Subject: Lewes, DE Pelagic Trip MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm amazed that no one has yet posted news of the pelagic trip out of Lewes, DE on Saturday, March 15. I'll take the opportunity to put up some really neat sightings! The trip left from Lewes at 6 a.m. aboard the 115' Thelma Dale IV. As Mary Gustafson was telling everyone, size does matter! About 1/3 of the available time was spent in Delaware waters (many of us slept through this part) and about 2/3 in Maryland waters (hurray!). The sun shone all day (I have a very sunburned nose) and the waves were almost nonexistent. Here is the final tally that Paul Guris called out near the end of the day (all birds were pelagic sightings, out of sight of land): Common Loon 20 Red-throated Loon 21 Northern Fulmar 121 (most in Maryland, a few in Delaware) Northern Gannet 186 Red Phalarope 15 (I think most of these were seen in Maryland, including a very cooperative trio that were seen 15-20 feet off the stern of the boat) Bonaparte's Gull 6 Herring Gull 427 (Mark Hoffman really counted all of these!) Lesser Black-backed Gull 4 Okay, here come the alcids: Dovekie 4 (all in Maryland, I believe) Common Murre 1 (in Maryland) Thick-billed Murre 1 (in Delaware...grrrrr) Razorbill 20 (in both states) Atlantic Puffin 1 (in Maryland) Additionally we had great looks at four Fin Whales and 43 Common Dolphins. Thanks to Paul Guris's See-Life Paulagics and all the great leaders. I'll never remember all their names but Paul was one, of course, as were Mark Hoffman, George Armistead, Mary Gustafson, Marshall Iliff, Bruce Peterjohn, and at least a couple of others that I didn't get to meet--apologies to you guys. The weather was great, all the familiar faces (you know who you are) were great, and the birds were outstanding! About half of the Howard County Chapter was aboard, proving that these guys really do leave their county every now and then! (Just kidding, folks!) Big news! See Life Paulagics is contemplating an April 12 trip specifically targeting Great Skua. They need signups from at least thirty people as soon as possible so they can reserve the boat before some one else does. This means if you are interested...go to their website and sign up RIGHT NOW!!! They are at www.paulagics.com, or e-mail them at info@paulagics.com, or call them at 215-234-6805, or (gack) snail-mail them at P.O Box 161, Green Lane, PA 18054. Just do it! Now! Best, Norm ============================ Norman C. Saunders Colesville, Montgomery County, MD marshhawk@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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================