Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 10:51:12 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Scott Crabtree Subject: Late December Birds, Queen Anne's County MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Here are some recent sightings in QA County. On December 28th, I started off the morning at the NE end of Piney Creek Rd on Kent Island, where the road dead-ends on Piney Cove. (Clever naming!) Not much in the water, but there were four Brown-headed Nuthatches in the pines and two Fox Sparrows in the brush. We moved on out to the southern fields of the county, and found a small flock of Horned Larks along Rolling Bridge Rd, which turns off of Starr Rd, east of the famous pond. That road eventually connects with Little Eagle Rd, where we found a flock of about 150 American Pipits. Going further east, we ended up on Mason Branch Rd, where in the field opposite the hunting preserve, there was another flock of about 80 Larks. I checked them all carefully - no Snow Buntings, longspurs, or any aberrant pipits. December 30th, morning, and we were in Terrapin Park. Land birds were really in short supply, possibly due to the two adult hunting Sharp-shinned Hawks (one reported by a maintenance worker in a location different than the one we saw at the same time), two immature Cooper's (we saw both in different areas, but it could have been the same bird moving around), and a Peregrine along bayside. The only other bird of interest was an American Tree Sparrow, in the same location as the one I reported from December 7. Possibly the same bird? Scott Crabtree Chester, Kent Island, MD crabtree@myshorelink.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================