Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 16:51:44 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: danny poet Subject: Common Loon Interesting Behavior Comments: cc: lroslund@bluecrab.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Hi all Stan great sighting of the woodcock behavior . Speaking of intresting behavior of birds on Sat March the 27, 2004 I went to the Kent Narrows in Queen Annes Co. the Ducks were pretty far out in Eastern Bay also there were a few Horned Grebes. There were 2 breeding plumage Common Loons there fairly close . It was also raining hard enough to turn on my windshield wipers once in a while just to see. While watching the Loons they come right up close to each other 1 began to dip its bill straight down to the surface of the water.soon the other begain doing the same. The 2 birds repeated this several times followed by both loons facing each other rearing the front part of their bodies up and out of the water as if to walk on the surface and than spreading out their wings for a few seconds than closing them slowly this to be repeated several times also. than they each went a differant way. This behavior I had never seen before and latter at home looked thru some Referance Books did not find much about it . The books say loons do not do mating displays other than at the nesting grounds. One book Ken Kaufman's Birds of North America mentions this as a mating ritial But with the added bonus of running the across surface of the water which my birds did not do . Another book mentioned it as as terrtorial thing. But in either case it was a most interesting thing to witness. Happy Birding Danny Poet Queenstown Md birder231@hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Get rid of annoying pop-up ads with the new MSN Toolbar ? FREE! http://toolbar.msn.com/go/onm00200414ave/direct/01/ ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================