Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 23:27:14 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Laura M. Appelbaum" Subject: Woodcocks, March 16 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tonight my husband, a friend and I drove out to Hughes Road (over an hour away -- Montgomery is some big county, isn't it!) to follow up on a report I heard at the recent MCC Board Meeting about woodcocks being seen out in a field there. About a half hour after we arrived, Don Simonson and a group of friends showed up as well. At around 6:30 we started to hear them "beeping" -- I'd guess we heard about three separate birds. We were all able to follow one of them up and around the field, but the dense cloud cover (it started to drizzle around 6:45) made it almost impossible to track further flights. At one point, both our friend Peter and I caught a glimpse of a woodcock scurrying across the field, but again lost them in the dark and the clouds. Still, that was the first time Alan and I have seen woodcocks in ten years, and an all-around first for Peter. Well worth the drive -- I'm sure we'll try again on a clearer night. Laura Appelbaum Cloverly, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================