Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 17:54:26 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Arlene Ripley Subject: 11/28 Smithsonian hummingbird & Kelp Gull Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed On a very humid and soggy afternoon (approximately 2:15 PM), the hummingbird was very easy to locate in the Ripley Garden (great name, by the way). It was noisily chattering away in the tree where the feeder is located. We took a few photos but the light was poor and the rain was coming down quite steadily. It cooperated by pumping its tail the whole time it fed from the feeder and does display the other characteristics of a Black-chinned already discussed in past reports. The number of people on the Mall today was awesome -- so many that we aborted our plans to visit a few museums. We took the Metro in and were glad we did. Fortunately we had other reasons to make the trip into the District but the stop at the Mall was well worth it to see the little hummer. Yesterday, 11/27, we stopped at the Sea Breeze in Sandgates, St. Mary's county on our way to a Thanksgiving dinner and the Kelp Gull was easy to find as it foraged for tidbits on the ground of the parking lot. Arlene Ripley Calvert County, MD piwa@earthlink.net http://nestbox.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================