Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 13:13:15 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Paul P." Subject: Ripley hummingbird continues Comments: To: Janni Ottavio MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Three of us were at the Ripley Gardens this (Sunday, 11/23) morning near first light and saw the putative Black-chinned Hummingbird (I'm being cautious here only because it hasn't been banded - Dave's photos and Bob Sargent's comments say it all). The bird first showed at 7:05 am, and seemingly appeared from behind the bushes to the left of the blue salvia guarantica(?) (back in the corner, near an up lamp that presumably keeps things a little warm at night). It disappeared at 7:11, and then reappeared at 7:15. It mostly fed on the salvia and perched in the large bush to the left of the salvia, though it ranged a little further too - feeding in the big evergreen to the left of the bush, roosting in the willow to the left of that (and chasing off a Song Sparrow), then feeding in the other flowers in the big island. At 7:35 am it fed in the arborvitae (the 3 big ones clustered together), and was then lost as it flew off behind them. This is consisitent with the direction where Dave saw it fly off yesterday - over the Mall - but it was obscured, so I can't say for sure. We stuck around for about 10-15 more minutes, but didn't see it again. I got some video of the bird, which may help with the ID. My guess is that the bird roosted here - as Dave presumed - so it looks like first light is the best time to see it. Others were there from c.9:00-10:00 this morning, and did not see the bird. Good birding, Paul Pisano Arlington, VA ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================