[MDOsprey] Birding in Hurricane (Part 1 of 4)

Miliff@aol.com
Wed, 15 Sep 1999 14:47:13 EDT


Hello all,

This is a call for anyone who can to do a little birding over the next few 
days to seek out hurricane-blown vagrants in Maryland and surrounding areas.  
There is still a lot to be learned about the effects of hurricanes on birds, 
especially in Maryland.  Your effort may produce valuable information on how 
birds respond to the storm, how to predict the bird loads of future storms, 
and where to concentrate our coverage in the state in the future.  Maryland 
has yet to "hit it big" a la Bridge-Tunnel, Kerr Reservoir, or Cape May (all 
of which had large numbers of high quality storm birds in 1996 - see 
following emails).  Remember that we still need the following for the state 
list, all of which have precedence for hurricane blown vagrancy to the 
Northeast: White-tailed and Red-billed tropicbird, Brown Booby, or Herald and 
Fea's Petrels.  We also have pitifully few records for Magnificent 
Frigatebird (7), Black-capped Petrel (3), Band-rumped Storm-Petrel (1), 
White-faced Storm-Petrel (2), Sabine's Gull (2 well documented), Arctic Tern 
(3 well documented), and a number of other likely waifs.  Almost any tubenose 
or seabird in Bay or inland would likely be a county first.

Three emails will follow that may be of use to anyone planning on seeking 
storm birds.  

** The first discusses strategy and recommends some locations that might be 
good to check, even if only briefly. 
** The second addresses the most likely species to be seen, with comments on 
1) previous records in MD and elsewhere 
2) expected behavior during the storm
3) identification
** The third reviews past storms in MD and on the East Coast. 

I, unfortunately, am still working on an oil platform 67 mi off the LA coast 
(studying the trans-Gulf migration with LSU -- has been slow recently) and 
will not be able to do any hurricane chasing. 

Jim Stasz has written to say he will cover Hooper's Island.  If you can spare 
any time (I know it is a work day for those who can't run off at a moments's 
notice!), please consider the emails below, consider your goals in seeking 
hurricane birds: are you out for state birds, county birds, or simply to 
better understand the effect of hurricanes on birds and specifically, on 
birds in Maryland.  I hope that a number of you will decide the latter is a 
primary goal and pick some of the more poorly covered locations, rather than 
getting a bottleneck of people at Sandy Point or Point Lookout (a couple of 
the obvious choices).  Birding with others is always more fun, but consider 
that your contribution will be much greater if you bird any of the multitudes 
of sits that will likely go unchecked otherwise.    

Note that if any of you are not subscribed to Hurricane Net, you can do so by 
emailing jwcoffey@tricon.net and asking him to add you to the list.  He edits 
the list himself (your posts go to him and he posts if he thinks they are 
appropriate) which is active ONLY during a major hurricane effecting the East 
and Gulf coasts.  There should be a number of postings from the next few days 
which will give you an idea of what others are seeing and what our chances 
are.  I will try to forward postings of interest to MDOsprey for those that 
do not subscribe.

Finally, PLEASE use common sense as this storm could still be dangerous and 
will CERTAINLY cause dangerous driving.  Do not take unnecessary risks, don't 
stay go to Assateague or Ocean City of flooding or truly dangerous conditions 
are likely, and do not drive through the really bad stuff.  Beware of fallen 
trees on roadways.  Watch out for tornadoes which are always a possibility in 
these storms. To my knowledge there a has not yet been any injuries or 
fatalities due to birding induced insanity in these storms, but I know a 
number of birders (e.g., Ned Brinkley in Fran 1996) have been scared 
senseless.  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BE CAREFUL!!!

That said, check out my other three posts and I hope they are of use.  
Remember that even if there is not a high rarity load (I _think_ there will 
be), whatever you observe will be of interest.  Take good notes.  And please, 
post your observations as soon as you can (or better yet, call a friend who 
is stuck at work and see if s/he can post for you!  Perhaps someone will 
volunteer to be a switchboard for hurricane observations...

Good luck and safe birding!

Marshall Iliff
miliff@aol.com
(currently 100 mi off LA)