Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 18:35:43 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "George M. Jett" Subject: Allen's Fresh and Yard Today Comments: To: SMAS Comments: cc: Miliff@aol.com MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Folks Gwen and I decided to go out to Allen's Fresh mid day to see what yesterdays 2.5+ inches of rain brought in. We dawned our coats, hats and gloves, and headed out for some winter birding. Highlights were two late Tundra Swan, two flyover Glossy Ibis, 8 Short-billed Dowitchers, and two Cliff Swallows. The six female Red-breasted Mergansers around for a week were still enjoying the wetland. Other shorebirds were Spotted Sandpiper, Solitary Sandpiper, both Yellowlegs, and Least Sandpipers. Other swallows were Barn, Tree, and Bank. There were no other Ibis species, but there were three Mute Swans. We also had an interesting subadult Forster's Tern. We could have used some of these species on our not so successful Big Day on Monday. We had 126 but missed all the highlights above. Report to follow. New yard birds for the year were Chestnut-sided Warbler and Rock Dove. Rock dove is a rare sighting at 9505 Bland St., in Waldorf, Charles Co., Maryland. The only one last year was June 22. For the record, I have not seen a House Sparrow for about 18 months. Other migrants were American Redstart and Blackpoll. Tomorrow may be a good day to search for other storm driven birds. Good birding George ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================