Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 14:53:51 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Phil Davis Subject: Review status of Maryland winter seabirds Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Hi Ospreyers: Since birders are finding many great seabirds at Ocean City recently and there is a pelagic scheduled to visit Maryland waters this weekend, I wanted to provide a quick reminder on the MD/DC Records Committee review status of several winter species: Pacific Loon - reviewable anywhere in MD Western Grebe - reviewable anywhere in MD. Ditto for Clark's Grebe, which would be a MD state record. any Albatross - reviewable Great Skua - (the "expected" winter species) is NOT reviewable from the coast or at sea. While South Polar Skua is not expected during the winter in MD waters, any skua should be positively separated from it and Brown Skua. Murres - Both Common and Thick-billed are reviewable anywhere in MD. Black Guillemot - would be a state record for MD and is reviewable. The following are NOT reviewable if seen in coastal Worcester County or at sea in the Atlantic: Northern Fulmar, Manx Shearwater, Black-legged Kittiwake, Dovekie, Razorbill, Atlantic Puffin. (However, all of these--and other seabirds--are reviewable if seen inland). My notes, above, are a quick summary and paraphrasing of from the MD Review List. I recommend printing a copy of this list from the MD/DCRC web pages and throwing it in your glove box or your birding backpack. It can be found under "Review Lists" at this URL ... http://www.mdbirds.org/mddcrc/rcindex.html There is also a documentation checklist/set of guidelines on the MD/DCRC web pages that provides some memory joggers of what to document for observed rarities. Some of the key points are: make notes before consulting field guides; describe the entire bird in detail, not just key field marks; and indicate how you separated the bird from other similar species. Photos and videos are always welcome. A common mistake is thinking that "someone else" will document a rarity and then no one does. It is better for us to get more reports, than fewer. Reports on the recent OC Inlet Common/Thick-billed Murres and Black Guillemot are welcome. Please let me know if you saw any of these reported birds and if you plan to submit a report. Hope this helps ... find those rarities! Good luck. Phil =================================================== Phil Davis, Secretary MD/DC Records Committee 2549 Vale Court Davidsonville, Maryland 21035 USA 301-261-0184 mailto:PDavis@ix.netcom.com MD/DCRC Web site: http://www.MDBirds.org/mddcrc/rcindex.html =================================================== ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================