Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2004 17:28:09 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Steve Sanford Subject: Surf Scoters at Centennial Lake & Counting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I stopped by Centennial Lake around 2 PM. At the east (deep) end there were precisely 2 male Surf Scoters. These are the first scoters for my Howard County list, and I assume pretty uncommon. There were two female Common Mergansers there too. At the shallow (west) end there were a male and female Pintail, 5 Ring-necked Ducks, a Pied-billed Grebe, a Coot, and ~20 Canada Geese. The recent discussion on counting reminds me of a Baltimore Harbor Tally Rally about 15 years ago. Bob Ringler had been going around various areas in a boat. I was on land like almost everybody else. When we went the rounds reporting each territory's numbers, I remember I reported, say, 12 Canvasbacks, and Bob chimed in "Add 12,000." So I assume the count became 12,012. Or was it 12.000 X 10^3? When I see postings with large numbers of warblers and such, I often wonder how the counters decide which ones they already counted, or if they tried to make such a judgment. It seems like there is always some estimation involved when you can't simultaneously see every bird in the vicinity. Steve Sanford Randallstown Baltimore County ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================