Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 12:55:47 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: Little Gull (1) at Back River today 3/26 Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hi -- (Okay, Bob, I have the right date!) Made another trek up to Back River and there has been a tremendous decline in the number of Bonaparte's Gulls since 3/24. Probably at most 350 around as compared to 1000 or so Wednesday. The warm weather is pushing them out, but the Bonie migration is far from over. Most of the birds were still in winter plumage; by the end most will be in their smart black heads and pinkish breasts. When we got to Diamond Pt. Rd., we met Mike and Joy Bowen and Helen Patton. They had seen one adult LITTLE GULL flying around and soon we saw it as well -- a bird almost into summer plumage so not one of the 5 from Wednesday. Not many Bonies downstream of the bridge so uneventful there. Other species observed: Fox Sparrows singing at the Diamond Rd. site (vacant lot with "for sale" sign), Hooded Merganser, several Ospreys and an adult Bald Eagle, three Greater Yellowlegs flying by. It is still worth regular checking of this site as we know, it has had some exciting gulls over the years, including the famous Ross', plus Black-headed and Franklin's. Gail Mackiernan and Barry Cooper Silver Spring, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================