Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2004 19:34:04 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "George M. Jett" Subject: Re: Charles County Birds - March 7, 2004 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Carol Maybe for Gwen but no new species for me. The trip was fun and I will take it again before the RNGR leave. Maybe a future SMAS trip next year. Regards George ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carol /Oscar Ghebelian" To: Sent: Monday, March 08, 2004 12:56 PM Subject: Re: [MDOSPREY] Charles County Birds - March 7, 2004 > gad, what a bonanza day!! > > carol > > "George M. Jett" wrote: > > > > Folks > > > > Yesterday Gwen took me to King George and Westmoreland County, > > Virginia to work on my Big Charles County year. All the birds on the Potomac are Maryland birds and based on a tip from Todd Day, we headed to Virginia's Westmoreland State Park. The target species was Red-necked Grebe. We did not find the target species, but had some great flocks of waterfowl once we got down to George Washington's birth place. Colonial Beach and north was pretty dull with the highlight being four Horned Grebe up to that point. > > > > At the GW birth place we hit one of the largest flocks of duck I > > have every observed on the river. We easily had 600 + Canada Geese, 200 Tundra Swan (on the MD side), 50+ Gadwall (in the VA shallows), 150 Canvasback, 3500 Greater Scaup, perhaps 30 Common Goldeneye, maybe 100 Bufflehead, up to seven Surf Scoters, two Northern Shovelers, and we don't know what else. We also had about six more Horned Grebe before a fishing boat came racing through, and flushed the flock before we could fully survey them. > > > > South at Westmoreland we had perhaps five Red-throated Loon, two > > Common Loon (along the way), lots more Scaup (this time mixed but mostly Greater - some of which may have been north before the fishing boat event), upwards of 2000 Ruddy Ducks, two more Surf Scoters, and a smattering of Bufflehead. Westmoreland is on the Charles County/Saint Mary's line on the Potomac, and offers an opportunity to work on both county lists while sitting at the picnic table scanning the water. > > > > The Osprey conservative (I hate to be associated with that word) > > count on the VA side was about 12 birds. Gwen heard only one Eastern Bluebird during the entire time in VA. This animal needs additional help to grow the population after two hard winters. More later on that. > > > > At home we enjoyed the continued visits of the Fox Sparrows (six > > today), and Rusty Blackbirds. Up to 35 briefly stopped over early this morning - only six males yesterday. One male particularly enjoys split peanuts and is pretty reliable. The others did not stay long. Three Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers and one Ruby-crowned Kinglet continue to consume the peanut butter. > > > > And finally the best news. Between 5:45 and 6:10 PM about 700 > > Canada Geese were calling and heading north in waves to breed. In the forth wave One WHITE MORPH SNOW GOOSE was easily seen to the east of the house. This is yard bird # 154 and a long awaited addition. Patients paid off. It only took the first 540 Canada's to find the first Snow Goose for the property. It is very hard to get a new yardbird. Only two all of last year. A good start and number 49 for the year. An unidentified number of Tundra Swans were also on the move last night, but out of sight both before and after the sunset. > > > > Still on the mend but having a better time of it. > > > > Regards > > > > George > > > > ==================================================================== > > === > > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > > ======================================================================= > > -- > Carol Ghebelian > Indian Head, MD > gheb@bellatlantic.net > > ====================================================================== > = > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================