First, thanks to Dave Czaplak for saving me from myself! I had arrived
at the spot at Violette's Lock at 2 pm and there were no cormorants of
any kind. After a while I headed downstream checking out a couple of
vantage points until I came to a spot where there were 8 D-C Cormorants.
After attempting to turn one of them into Neo, I headed back up to the
spot and ran into a woman who had just arrived (sorry, I didn't ask her
name but she had a Nikon scope). Still no Neo. Shortly after, she headed
off to try another location. Elaine and Stan Arnold showed up and around
4. I decided to head back down river to scope out the cormorants I'd
seen earlier. We had our talkabouts so if either of us saw Neo, we'd
radio. I got about 5 minutes down the tow path when I ran into Dave. He
had just checked out the cormorants so we went back and he proceeded
further upriver while I joined Stan and Elaine, and Harvey and Marion
Mudd.

We were scanning the various grebes and Ruddy Ducks loafing on the water
when I happened to look up and 2 cormorants were flying out of the sun
reflection downriver. We all got on them and it was obvious that the
rear bird was smaller with a much longer tail. We watched for about 5
seconds until they disappeared behind trees without any sign of slowing
down. 4:20:00 to 4:20:05. Whew! Very nice side by side comparison of the
two cormorant species. Too bad it couldn't have been sustained.

Then I had to do battle with traffic to get to St. Mary's county shortly
after 7pm. D.C. traffic is unbelievable!

Finally, kudos to Dave Czaplak and Mary Ann Todd for finding this bird!
What a gem.

Tyler Bell

California, MD

-----Original Message-----
From: Maryland Birds & Birding [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Mary Ann Todd
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 5:26 PM
To: 
Subject: [MDOSPREY] Cormorant on Wed.

On Wed. Nov 2nd the Neotropic Cormorant flew downriver past Violette's
Lock 
at 4:20PM, accompanied by one Double-crest. From my vantage point they
appeared 
to overfly the group of cormorants loitering in the rapids 1/3 mile 
downstream from Violette's, and keep on going. A bunch of folks standing
at the head of 
the rapids also saw the bird go by. I could not tell if the bird came
from 
out of the golf course, or from upriver above Seneca.

The male and female adult Peregrines that were sitting on the rocks in
the 
Violette's rapids on Sunday, were on Wednesday soaring over Carderock at
noon. 
Perhaps they are attracted to one of the cliffs below Great Falls.

Dave Czaplak