Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 22:11:10 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Robert Ringler Subject: Re: Snow Goose in HowCo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Kurt, At the risk of incurring the ire of Bonnie I must take exception to your report of Black-throated Weaver Finches at Fort McHenry. I doubt that you saw any weaver finches. According to the 7th edition of the AOU Checklist the bird to which you are referring is in the family Passeridae which the checklist committee has dubbed Old World Sparrows, closely related to, but not a part of, the Weavers or Ploceidae. The weavers create much neater constructions than the birds you reported. Since the name Black-throated Sparrow is already preoccupied perhaps you need to give it some other catchy title. Bob Ringler ----- Original Message ----- From: Kurt Schwarz To: Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2004 1:14 PM > The Ft. McHenry walk led by Jim Peters this morning produced TWO Bald > Eagles on the nest. There were abundant Am. Widgeon and Bufflehead, > and a coot. Great Black-Backed Gull was present, as were Herrings. > Two Mute Swans. Song birds were limited to Starling, Red-winged > Blackbird (they were singing!), White-throated Sparrow, Song Sparrow, > House Finch, and Am. Goldfinch, plus ubiquitous Black-throated Weaver > Finches. ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================