Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 19:05:51 -0800 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Ole Buck Subject: Life Birds Comments: To: md-smas@yahoogroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Evening gang... On my way back from Waldorf today I swung down and stopped in at Allens Fresh. Mom and Marty haven't had much luck there lately so I thought I'd see what was around. The wind was fierce and cold and made it tough to keep the scope steady, not to mention keeping the fingers working. I ended up with a nice view of a mature bald eagle who hung around a while, a couple of ospreys and the assorted vulture now and again. I also had four common snipe, a couple dozen green wing teal and a good sized flock of tree swallows wind-surfing and working the grassy edges of the marsh. I don't understand what the trouble is for Mom and Marty. :) After Allens Fresh I dropped in at Beavue Ponds still hoping for the northern shovelers. This was my fourth or fifth trip since they've been reported and I'd yet to see them. Today was my lucky day! There were 3 or 4 pairs huddled in the corner of the big pond with some gadwall, american wigeon and a couple mallards, all trying to stay out of the wind. A couple canadas, mute swans and of course the northern harriers were around as well. The ospreys seemed more interested in wind-surfing than fishing and the white crowned sparrows were sticking close to the bramble bush to avoid being blown away. There was surpisingly nobody on the river down at Abells Wharf though. I didn't stick around very late but the harriers seemed to be settling down and there were still no short eared owls. Perhaps they've finally moved on. I haven't seen them out on windy evenings though so who knows... So for the weekend I ended up with Life Birds #122 American Bittern (at Flag Ponds in Culvert Co.), #123 Piping Plover at Calvert Cliffs SP, #124 Tree Swallows at Allens Fresh and #125 Northern Shoveler at Beavue Ponds. I also ended up with about a half-dozen year birds too. Not a bad weekend I think! Well that's about all from my neck of the woods... happy birding!! Chris Ordiway Seasonal Naturalist olebuck73@yahoo.com 301-872-5085 Point Lookout State Park 11175 Point Lookout Rd., PO Box 48 Scotland, MD 20687 Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time. ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================