Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2003 21:37:48 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Mark Hoffman Subject: Northern Shrike in Ocean City MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'll be working on a summary of the Worcester rarities roundup, which was quite successful. Of perhaps more immediate interest than some of the good birds seem Saturday, I had an immature Northern Shrike at 2:30 pm today in Ocean City. The bird was in the area behind the Catholic Church on 100th St. (the northern part of the "94th" or "96th" St. woods. West of the church behind their large parking lot, is an activity center building. I initially saw the shrike in the top of a bare tree, on the north edge of the parking lot (to the east) of the activity center. I saw it briefly, but the head well. It had a very reduced face mask (particularly in front of the eye) and extensive yellowish base to the lower mandible. Clearly an immature. It flew to the edge of the small pond surrounded by phragmites just north of the parking lot and disappeared. I saw it one more time, on top of one of the pines to the northwest of the pond. I got three distant photos. I walked out in the marsh to the west of the building and circled around the pond/pines to the north. I would not recommend this. The marsh is difficult to walk in and their is no good place to get a view of the treetops. I called Matt Hafner (on his way back from the roundup) and he called Hans Holbrook and Jim Brighton. I waited for them to show, and headed home. Hans called me later and said they eventually saw the bird over the area and then it went down in the marsh to the west where they were able to relocated it. Hans said he got a digascope shot at 20 ft! Good luck. Northern Shrikes are notoriously difficult to relocate. This is Worcester's fifth record of this species, the earliest fall arrivial, and a early date for the state at large. Mark Hoffman Sykesville, MD Mhoff36100@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================