Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 20:08:41 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Stan Arnold Subject: Snow Buntings, N. Assateague, etc. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Folks, After the successful pelagic trip out of Lewes on Sat., I joined Bill Hubick for some Worcester Co. birding on Sunday, 29 Feb. We began and ended the day at Assateague, making the required visit to the inlet and Eagle's Nest in between to see the birds being reported the past couple weeks. Not sure if anyone reported the PEREGRINE FALCON on the water tower at the inlet, but most birders saw it while we were there. Early in the morning at Assateague, Bill and I picked up eight N. BOBWHITE next to the main road by the "S-bend" about a mile prior to the fee station. A singing PINE WARBLER in the vicinity was a first of the season for me. Late in the morning we decided to walk the north end of the island, out towards Ocean City inlet. We had only intended to hike part of the way to the inlet, but we talked ourselves into going the entire distance; the last hour of the 6 3/4 hour trek was not particularly fun. Did not see any of the birds hoped for, but were pleasantly surprised with a flock of 35 SNOW BUNTINGs, particularly nice since this was a life-bird for Bill. Also, among the many Savannah Sparrows seen were three IPSWICH SPARROWs, a life subspecies for Bill. At the inlet the tide was high, and we saw a single RAZORBILL among the many gulls and scoters on the south side of the jetty. All of the eiders must have been on the other side of the rocks. What a switch! After returning to the car (oh, the JOY of sitting down again), it was just getting dark, and we headed back into the park to Bayside Rd. The entire area was TEAMING with WOODCOCKS. As we drove along, peents were coming from every direction, and the epicenter of the activity seemed to be the parking area for the Life-of-the-Marsh Trail. We watched a couple birds display, and had excellent views of a very vocal bird close to the road. And this was just the tail end of the activity. The previous evening at the same time Bill reported as many as a dozen birds vocalizing or displaying at any given time from a single vantage point. Great place to go if you want to see or hear woodcocks. And speaking of woodcocks, this evening (Mon., 1 March) in northern AA County I heard some peents coming from an opening in the woods along Marley Neck Blvd, just northeast of the powerlines near the turnoff to Marley Neck Rd. Another hopeful for the Curtis Bay CW atlas block. Stan Arnold Glen Burnie dy.dx@earthlink.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================