Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2003 23:30:39 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Matt Hafner Subject: North Beach storm birds MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Apologies for the late post, but lack of power and internet access have made it tough. Jim Stasz, Mark Hoffman and I set up at North Beach this morning looking for Isabel birds. First of all, Jim's house barely escaped inside water damage by about an inch, literally. We watched the waves crash down on his front porch all morning before wading over to it to see the damage. Everything is OK and Jim is very much relieved. We watched from about 7am to 1:30pm. Storm related birds: Common Terns - most numerous storm bird, lots of birds headed south mostly in small flocks of 8-12 Royal Terns - several loose groups of 2-3 birds Forster's Terns- not as many as Common, but always in view Caspian Terns - 2 both headed north Sandwich Tern - 1 headed south with a group of Royals Roseate Tern - one sat on the North Beach boardwalk rail about 75 feet in front of us for several minutes Arctic Tern - a juvenile seen at less than 200 feet flying south with a Common. I had the best look and I believe the only one to confirm ID. Mark thought the bird looked good, but didn't see it well enough. Jim was wandering somewhere and missed it completely. Lots of peeps headed south including 1 long-winged, probably White-rumped. Other shorebirds included Pectoral, Black-bellied Plover, Short-billed Dowitcher, and best of all, a very early Purple Sandpiper. Several hummingbirds and Chimney Swifts were also moving along with a Merlin. I could be forgetting something. Sorry it's late. Matt Hafner College Park, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================