Date: Sun, 13 Apr 2003 16:46:52 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Laura M. Appelbaum" Subject: Carolina Chickawoodpecker? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This morning (Sunday) a friend and I took a bird walk along the Paint Branch in Colesville. The stand-outs were Bluebirds (I never get tired of looking at bluebirds), a Red Fox, a Kestrel, a Phoebe, numerous Rufous-Sided Towhees (yes, I know they've changed the name, but this was the first bird I identified as a birder and so RST he remains!) and a Barred Owl seen at very close range (I found his tree, where there was a single fresh pellet on the ground). The latter watched me balefully with those black eyes for a long moment before taking off and flying away down the hill. And then, there was another interesting bird ... to all appearances, it was a Carolina Chickadee on a small snag ten-fifteen feet from the stream. The snag or really, the remnants thereof, was only about five feet high and totally covered with shelf mushrooms. There was a small hole, no more than a half-inch in diameter, which the bird in question was beside. First, he started pulling off loose bark and mushrooms from around the hole. But then, the strange part ... he actually began *drilling* on the wood, pounding away rapidly at the edges of the hole with his little bill as if he suddenly fancied himself a member of the Piciade family. He did this for several minutes while my friend took photographs of him, which will obviously be important for the description of this new species, the Carolina Chickawoodpecker, AKA Picoides carolinensis. Perhaps the discovery of this species, new to North America, will be useful in the definitive EIS for the ICC. ;D Anyone ever see a chickadee do something like this before? It was really strange! 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================