Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 19:30:33 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Arlene Ripley Subject: Patuxent River CBC; PRAIRIE WARBLER Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed 1/4/04 Calvert portion of Patuxent River CBC circle that includes the Cove Point area (northeast of Solomons). Began the morning with rain and wind, although balmy, and found bird numbers and variety pretty miserable. Ended up with 10 less species than last year when conditions were much colder and even snowy. Could not find easy stuff like Blue Jay, House Finch, House Sparrow, Mourning Dove, and Tufted Titmouse! Hard to believe, really. By 10 AM the skies began to clear and birding picked up somewhat. The biggest surprise was a beautiful male PRAIRIE WARBLER found at the end of Cove Point Road (Lighthouse Boulevard). This spot was directly to the right facing the cyclone fence entrance gate to the Cove Pt. Lighthouse. The bird popped out in a mixed flock of Yellow-rumps and Carolina Wrens. When I saw the flash of very bright yellow, I thought this was going to be something good. It certainly brightened our less-than-stellar day! Arlene (and Doug) Ripley Species seen (50): Horned Grebe -- 2 Double-crested Cormorant --1 Mute Swan 4; one with neck ring CA56 Tundra Swan -- 6 Canada Goose -- 35 American Wigeon -- 25 Gadwall --37 Green-winged Teal -- 83 Mallard -- 46 American Black Duck -- 13 Ring-necked Duck -- 44 Long-tailed Duck -- 7 Surf Scoter -- 52 Bufflehead -- 77 Hooded Merganser -- 10 Black Vulture -- 4 Turkey Vulture -- 9 Bald Eagle -- 2 adults Red-shouldered Hawk -- 1 Red-tailed Hawk -- 1 American Kestrel --1 Great Black-backed Gull -- 1 Ring-billed Gull --151 Herring Gull -- 5 Bonaparte's Gull -- 3 Common Loon -- 8 Belted Kingfisher -- 2 Red-bellied Woodpecker -- 1 Downy Woodpecker -- 2 Hairy Woodpecker -- 1 Pileated Woodpecker -- 1 Eastern Phoebe -- 1 American Crow -- 39 Eastern Bluebird --1 (last year 55!) Northern Mockingbird -- 2 European Starling -- 45 Carolina Wren -- 9 Ruby-crowned Kinglet --1 Golden-crowned Kinglet -- 1 Carolina Chickadee -- 1 American Goldfinch -- 3 Yellow-rumped Warbler -- 36 Prairie Warbler -- 1 male Song Sparrow -- 7 Swamp Sparrow -- 4 White-throated Sparrow -- 6 Dark-eyed Junco-- 10 Field Sparrow -- 1 Northern Cardinal -- 7 Red-winged Blackbird -- 27 Common Grackle -- 25 Arlene Ripley NABS Website http://nabluebirdsociety.org web@nabluebirdsociety.org ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================