Well, ospreyers, it turned out, as expected, to be a wonderful weekend in Southern Maryland! First off, my apologies to you folks who signed up for my field trip Friday afternoon. The afternoon had been crazy hectic and I had a misunderstanding about the meeting time. I'm truly sorry for standing you up. At the same time, the opportunity for Fran and me to bird around Calvert Cliffs State park with Greg Miller was wonderful! We had a good chat, Greg! Greg's talk on Friday night, of course, was great! Just listening to his descriptions of his big year tired me out, but also brought back all the warm feelings I'd felt all during the previous year as he shared his adventure with us here on MDOsprey as it was happening! The MDOsprey reception on Friday night went really well! For those of you who didn't get the word that it was that evening, I'm sorry we missed you, but quite honestly I'm not sure we could have squeezed anyone anyone else in! Grin... Anyway, it was good to meet so many old and new Osprey friends! Saturday held a full day of birding, Sybil Williams' excellently run Silent Auction (Fran beat out Bonnie Ott bidding for the bird socks!), a rehabilitator's hurt-bird display, a wonderful wildlife art exhibit, and, of course, our Exciting Annual Meeting. It was especially exciting for me because of the awards we gave out this year. Valued Service Awards were presented to Isa Sieracki for her work with the Scholarship Committee, to Leanne Pemburn for the May Count Coordination she did so well, and to Lou DeMouy for his outstanding organizational work on the last three MOS Conferences. We gave a Conservator of the Year Award to Gene Scarpulla for the great work he has done over the past year informing people and working for the preservation of Hart-Miller Island as a place for migrating birds to stop off. Finally, we gave a Distinguished Career Service Award to John Malcolm, a man who has done just about every job imaginable during his more than 25 years with the MOS organization. Some would think this was enough, but the high point for me came at about 1:45 Sunday morning when I spoke with an exuberant yet exhausted Hal Wierenga to find that our own MD Yellowthroats had tallied 178 species during the World Series of Birding to take the Limited Geographical Area (single-county) Championship and further, that they had won the Cape Island Cup, the award given each year to those tallying the largest number of species in Cape May County. My sincere congratulation go out to Hal Wierenga, Lynn Davidson, Mark Hoffman, and Marshall Iliff for a job well done--you did MOS proud! My thanks go out to all the extremely generous members of MOS who made donations and pledges in support of the team and in support of MOS outreach programs. Thank you!!!! The last official act of the Conference was the tally rally handled by Bob Ringler on Sunday at noon. Collectively the field trips saw 162 species on some very strange birding days--high winds, not a lot of migration activity, etc. Finally, my thanks go out to the Southern Maryland Audubon Society for their wonderful hospitality and to the Anne Arundel and Jug Bay Chapters for taking the point position in organizing a most successful joint venture! And now, back to work...sigh. Best, Norm Saunders =============== Norm Saunders Colesville, MD osprey@ari.net