Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 20:32:32 +0000 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: jim brighton Subject: Wo. & Wi. Co.'s July 27 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Hans Holbrook and I drove out to Ocean City and Assateague for the day and turned up some very nice birds with large numbers. West Ocean City ponds held high numbers of herons with wood ducks and Moorhens also seen. Skimmer Island held all the usual with (4) Sandwich Terns and (54) Oystercatchers. Assateague, even with the hour and a half wait to get onto the ORV Zone held some great sights. On the bay side we spooked up a Peregrine Falcon along with a single Piping Plover. Great looks were had on the Plover we were only about 20' away! On the beach we had (21) Black Terns, another Sandwich Tern, (85) Whimbrel, (32) Least Terns, (2) Ruddy Turnstones, a single Gull-billed Tern, and weirdest of all, a single Purple Sandpiper in beautiful plumage sitting on the beach. We weren't expecting that one! We also had two more Piping Plover fly by with a flock of Black-bellied Plover. At Eagle's Nest Campground they made us park at the office and walk down to the water where we had two more immature Piping Plover on the closest sand spit. On the way home we stopped at the impoundment on the north side of Rt. 50 right after the end of the Salisbury By-pass westbound (thank God for 65mph) and had (4) Little blue Herons, Semipalmated Plover & Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, Killdeer, Greater & Lesser Yellowlegs, and a possible Stilt Sandpiper, but a state trooper pulled up and we lost the bird before we could get a positive ID. The policeman told us it was fine to stop and bird just don't get out of the car and drove off. This is a great place for ducks and shorebirds and a nice stopping place on the way home from the beach. Awesome ID on the Shearwater Mr. Starling!!! Jim Brighton Trappe, Md. _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================