Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 14:47:46 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: JAMES FELLEY Subject: Tidal Basin birds (+ no SI Rufous) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline First, it looks as if the Ripley Garden Rufous has left the premises. The last time anyone seems to have seen it was the evening of January 30. Did anyone see it after that time? During my lunchtime walk, I toured the frozen Tidal Basin. Dead fish can be seen under the ice, but surprising few gulls were about (at most a few dozen). Of these most were Greater Black-backed, with only a few Herring and the rest Ring-billed. I concentrated as hard as I could, yet no Lesser Black-backed or white-winged gulls could be persuaded to appear. The Washington Channel is also frozen over, with the same proportion of gull species. Also present at the top of the channel (by the outlet of the Tidal Basin) were a couple of Great Blue Herons and a few Black-crowned Night Herons. Two comments: 1) I can't help but wonder where all the Ring-billed Gulls are. I noticed that Ring-billed Gulls are among the species found affected by WNV (see http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/birds&mammals.htm ) Has anyone documented any drastic declines in Ring-bills at their breeding colonies? A quick scan of the Internet using Google didn't show anything like that. Perhaps the Ring-bills are just somewhere else. However, when the Tidal Basin freezes over they are usually by far the most abundant of the gulls. 2) The maps of Great Lakes ice coverage (see http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/Great_Lakes/5_Lake_Composite/East_Composite/current.jpg ) show that Lake Erie is ice covered and Lake Ontario is largely covered with ice. This seems to be the situation that correlated with the occurrence of Red-necked Grebes in the DC area last year. I'll be watching! Jim Jim Felley Smithsonian Institution felleyj@si.edu ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================