Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2004 00:35:48 +0000 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Norm Saunders Subject: Some 2004 firsts for us... Friday afternoon, near the eastern end of the bay bridge (Queen Anne's County) we saw our first OSPREY of the year. Today (Saturday) it pretty much rained all day down here in Worcester County but we did see our first GREAT EGRET of the year at a neighborhood pond and then, about 11:00 am we had a COMMON REDPOLL at our niger seed feeder. It was only there a short period of time, maybe 15 minutes or so. It was mobbed repeatedly by the goldfinches that have been here in mass quantities all winter long. We're still seeing FOX SPARROWS and SWAMP SPARROWS in good numbers at our feeders. Large nubers of grackles seem to have descended along the shore here, the first large numbers of both COMMON and BOAT-TAILED that we've seen away from inland fields this winter. After we saw Jim Stasz's message about the probable Pacific Loon at the jetty we hopped over there, arriving about 4 pm. The tide was coming in strongly and the offshore breeze was making the inrushing water in the inlet even rougher than usual. Made us think of Bob Ringler... We noted just one RAZORBILL, out by the green entrance buoy, 2 LAUGHING GULLS hanging out with the Ring-billed Gulls and Herring Gulls in the parking lot, 1 RED-NECKED GREBE, half a dozen or so RED-THROATED LOONS, 2 COMMON LOONS and no other sign of anything we were tempted to call a Pac Loon. From the jetty, we drove to Assateague Island, arriving in a pouring rain storm. We waited out the rain and the setting sun and began to hear the peents of AMERICAN WOODCOCK around us about 6:30. We were first in the parking lot of the Life of the Bay Trail but soon decided to move over to the Bayside Campground loop. Good decision becasue we had several woodcokc peenting on the ground about 30 feet away from us. We also got good looks of the birds flying in their higher and higher circles and we saw one bird making its Kamikaze dive back into the campground. I think we were hearing at least a half-dozen birds displaying but there may well have been a lot more. As we drove home along Rt. 611, we were amazed to see hundreds of small frogs/toads hopping across the road in front of us. With some judicious swerving I think I avoided flattening too many of the little fellas but from the smears on the road, it was obvious that others hadn't tried as hard. So, in spite of the rain we added a few more species to our year list! Best, Norm & Fran ============================ Norman C. Saunders Colesville & West Ocean City, MD Marshhawk@att.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================