Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 21:19:23 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Paul Woodward Subject: Washington Co.-1-24-04 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 24 January 2004 I did my usual portion of the mid-winter C&O Canal census today in Washington County- the five miles (76-80)from Snyder's Landing to Taylor's Landing. As seems to be the tradition on this count the weather was questionable. It had snowed earlier and there were 2-3 inches on the ground. Luckily the county did a good job of clearing the roads. It was even snowing for the first hour or so of the count, but cleared up later. Ended up with 38 species ( about normal) and 354 birds (lowest total in the five years I have done this count). Added 4 species to the cumulative list of 55- 2 Bald Eagles, 2 Herring Gulls, 5 Field Sparrows, and 5 Rusty Blackbirds. On the other hand, I didn't see any Great Blue Herons, Mallards, or Cedar Waxwings for the first time in five years. Although the Potomac River was open waterfowl were relatively scarce- only 31 Canada Geese, 26 Black Ducks, 3 Bufflehead, and 28 Common Mergansers. Last year I had 189 canadas and 73 blacks. I was interested in my counts of Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice and Carolina Wrens to see if they had decreased from last year like my normal winter counts downriver at Sycamore Landing. In all cases the had- chickadees (41 vs. 22) , titmouse (26 vs. 11) and wrens (41 vs. 19). All in all a very pleasant day. Paul Woodward Fairfax City, VA 22032 grackling@worldnet.att.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================