Hi again Folks,

Wanting to get in some good county listing, Bill Hubick and I headed down to
southern Maryland yesterday, where we spent the lion's share of the day
being shown around Charles Co. by George Jett and Gwen Brewer.  We were only
going to spend a couple hours in Charles, but we had such excellent guides
that we ended up spending nearly nine hours there, and tallied 76 species in
that county alone.  George mentioned the highlights yesterday in a posting
to the Osprey, but I'll be repetetive.  By 7 a.m. we had nabbed SCREECH OWL,
BARRED OWL, WOODCOCK and SNIPE, all county birds for Bill and me.  Probably
our best single find was the PEREGRINE FALCON on the Potomac River bridge,
apparently not seen the past couple years.  Other good finds for the outing
were WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW across the highway from Allen's Fresh, FOX
SPARROW at Myrtle Grove WMA, and also EASTERN PHOEBE and BROWN THRASHER (2).
Ospreys were everywhere that had sizeable water area.  Altogether, I picked
up 15 county birds, while Bill registered two or three times that.  Thanks
George and Gwen for a totally enjoyable day.

In mid-afternoon, we headed down to St. Mary's Co., where we dipped on
Shrimpie at the Sandgates restaruant.  From there we scanned the nice
collection of waterfowl on the Bellevue Ponds (Abell's Wharf Rd. and
vicinity) and then headed down to Point Lookout.  Nothing exceptional; a few
NORTHERN GANNETs on the bay-side of the point were probably our best find.
Our most interesting sighting, however, was watching a Herring Gull devour
an eel that was longer than the bird.  This fish was so big, that the bird
could not get the last 4 or 5 inches of tail into its mouth, and when it
swallowed all it could, the bird had a big lump on the back of the neck,
where the eel was being compressed in the gullet.  Bill got an entertaining
sequence of photos of this event, which he is planning to post.
Interestingly, we drove back by this bird an hour after first watching it,
and it had gotten the eel all the way in its mouth, but could not close its
mouth tightly yet.  This bird won't be eating again for a while.

Sadly, we didn't have Patty Craig's post until after we had gotten back
home, so we missed the Short-eared Owls and also missed woodcock, though we
tried for the latter.  It may have just been too windy for these birds to be
interested in courting.  Our consolation was a screech owl before heading
home.  We picked up 55 species in St. Mary's Co., and a total for the day of
84.  A long and fun day of birding.

Stan Arnold
Glen Burnie