Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 09:17:21 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Robert Ringler Subject: Re: Rusty Blackbirds, Halethorpe Pond MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Stan, When I checked your report against the Rusty Blackbird database I saw the 1948 entry and decided to look up the citation. Rusties are regular in variable numbers on the Coastal Plain in the winter so they are not unexpected in places like Halethorpe, Back River Neck, or George's backyard. They are very unpredictable in upland areas until they start migrating in February. That was a very interesting issue of Maryland Birdlife. As you know, President's Day weekend is popular for visiting the shore, and it was no different in 1948 as Washington's Birthday fell on the weekend. A field trip summary in that issued began: "On February 21, thirteen expectant birders crossed the Chesapeake Bay on the 8 A.M. ferry to Matapeake. Our leader was Chandler S. Robbins _ _". Another excerpt from the season report was: "Two snow buntings were closely observed by many members of the M.O.S. and the District Audubon Society [now ANS] at Ocean City on Feb. 22-23, and on the 23rd, Irston Barnes and the Audubon Society closely observed a single Lapland longspur, establishing the third Maryland record for this species." The final note in that issue was this: "Membership Report. At the end of February, the membership of the society stood at 636, compared with a total of 231 at the end of February one year ago. The total included 470 adults, 117 individual juniors and 49 affiliated junior clubs. Members were distributed over 20 of Maryland's 23 counties, with 341 in Baltimore City and County, 174 in Allegany, 14 in Washington County, 14 in Montgomery, 10 in Anne Arundel, and smaller numbers in the other counties." My how times have changed. Bob Ringler ----- Original Message ----- From: Stan Arnold To: Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 5:57 AM Subject: Re: [MDOSPREY] Rusty Blackbirds, Halethorpe Pond > Bob, > > Very interesting perspective on the Rusty Blackbirds; did you just > happen to > be reading this, or did you remember it from way back when? Of > interest is > that about a dozen and a half rusties were picked up on the Baltimore > City/Co. Midwinter count on Back River Neck Rd. on 24 Jan. > > I consider Rusty Blackbird a good find any time of year, anywhere (including > George Jett's back yard). ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================