Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 20:47:09 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Chris Starling Subject: Cecil Waterfawl 24 Nov- Greetings, Yesterday (11/24) I made my usual visit to the Perryville town park to scan Mill Creek and the surrounding waters for watrerfowl. I was not disapointed by what I encountered. Most interestingly was what seems like an early showing of Canvasback. It seems to me that I don't remember seeing any around here in November.?. There was also a LARGE raft (+/- 1000 birds) of Ring-necked Duck. I noticed this raft early and did not have my scope. A few hours later I returned with the scope and the raft was gone left thought were still good numbers of everything else. Here's the breakdown. Waterfowl: Tundra Swan:9 Snow Goose (flyby:)60 Canada Goose: 41 American Black Duck: 9 Mallard: 95 Gadwall: 133 American Wigeon: 36 Northern Shovler: 21 Blue-winged Teal: 12 Ring-necked Duck: 358+ (plus the raft that was there earlier) Canvasback: 24 Bufflehead: 122 Ruddy Duck: 25 Other "waterbirds": Pied-billed Grebe: 17 (highest local count for me) Great Blue Heron: 3 American Coot: 125+ Ring-billed Gull: (8) Forster's Tern: 4 Belted Kingfisher: 1 Others: Bald Eagle: 3 (Two adults on nest eating something (duck?)) Pileated Woodpecker -Had a Greater Yellowlegs and a Brown Creeper at my house (Hances Point) pre-dawn this morning too... Good Birding, Chris Starling North East (Hances Point), MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================