The Audubon Naturalist Society was having their annual late winter trip
to St. Mary's County yesterday. Paul Dumont had called me to see if I'd
be available to help people locate Shrimpy. Kyle Rambo had the group
first taking them on a tour of Pax River NAS. I arrived at the Seabreeze
shortly after Paul's group. There was a couple from North Carolina that
had been there since about 9 am as well as Brendan and a friend of his,
and Warren and Lisa Strobel. All were inside the restaurant dining and
looking at any possible dark-mantled gulls that happened by.

Paul's group was just about done with lunch when someone yelled "I think
that's the Kelp Gull!" Sure enough Shrimpy flew in and landed on the
short "feeding" pier which happened to be closest to where everyone was
seated. The lighting was excellent and even through the tinted glass,
you could clearly see all of the pertinent field marks. There were
several Great Black Backed Gulls on the other piers for comparison
though not side by side. So, Shrimpy does her thing, showing off all of
the field marks for about 10 minutes then took off to one of the other
piers. Fortunately, the folks who wanted to take pix had gone out onto
the deck for close up pix before she flew off.

As I've said in recent posts, Shrimpy is looking crisp in nice fresh
plumage. There is no trace of the head flecking that she shows during
the winter.

We formed a caravan over to Beauvue Ponds near Leonardtown to view the
numerous waterfowl species there. Lots of Ring-necked Ducks and Tundra
Swans with a few Mute Swans, Redhead, American Wigeon, Mallards,
Gadwall, Ruddy Ducks thrown in for good measure. I got a call from Kyle
a little later and he had arrived after the group left. He had
positioned himself a little further down Abell's Wharf Rd. giving him a
vantage point hidden from closer to Breton Beach Rd. Under an overhang,
he had Northern Pintails and several Green-winged Teal and Northern
Shovelers. Shovelers are notoriously difficult to find in St. Mary's
County.

On a different note, on Friday evening, around 6:20, I was parked
opposite an early succession field, along Patuxent Blvd. (off Rt. 4 in
St. Mary's) which sported several displaying American Woodcocks. Some
were peenting, others were doing their wing whistles. A couple flew low
over my car on their way back to earth. Thankfully, this location is
within one of my atlas blocks and has been one of the locations where I
can tick Woodcocks during May Count.

Tyler Bell

California, MD

-----Original Message-----
From:  
Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 6:53 PM
To: ; 
Subject: [MDOSPREY] Shrimpy

We arrived at Sandgates around 9:30 am.  No luck until about 1:00 when
Shrimpy showed up.  Still there when we left at 3:00 pm.

Brendan Klick
Baltimore, MD