Jim, et. al.

Great showing but Michael will come back.  Next year the bet will be the 
same.  Beat Michael's team and I will double my support.

Just for the record, you guys beat the ABA youth team, not just Michael and 
Louise.

Matt - where do I send the well deserved check?

George

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "jim brighton" <>
To: <>
Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 9:31 PM
Subject: [MDOSPREY] MOS Yellowthroats at the World Series


> This year the MOS Yellowthroats won the Cape May County only class at the 
> World Series of Birding in Cape May, NJ.  With a total of 179 birds the 
> Yellowthroats accumulated 10 more species than the 2nd place team led by 
> Michael O'Brian and his wife Louise.  This years team members included the 
> Captain  Hafner, Jim Brighton, Hans Holbrook, and Zach Baer.  Zach was a 
> welcome addition to the team.  A fourth member meant that the rest of the 
> team didn't have as much scouting which is essential for a decent species 
> total.
> While scouting and during the contest the team split the county into four 
> sections.  Each team member scouted one of the four areas.  Belle Plain 
> was my area.  Belle Plain is like the Nassawango area of 
> Worcester/Wicomico County here in Maryland.  It is a myriad of unnamed 
> dirt roads some coming to abrupt dead ends.  This area is where you get 
> all your breeding warblers, tanagers, and flycatchers.
> Zach scouted the Bayshore.  Along the Delaware Bay of Cape May County 
> there are many small landings, some going into marshes like Eliott's 
> Island here in Maryland, others going all the way to the Bay.  This area 
> is full of shorebirds feeding on the horseshoe crab feast that happens 
> during the Series each year.  This area has held a good number of rarities 
> over the past couple years.  This year we had to find the White-faced Ibis 
> (success) and the Western Grebe (dipped on this one) that were hanging 
> out.
> Hans scouted Oceanside.  This area is a tough because you are basically 
> scouting in an oceanside urban setting, checking all the little marinas 
> and roadside cuts plus the large expanse of marsh inbetween the ocean and 
> the mainland.  This area is where we finish wrapping up the shorebirds, 
> herons, and Peregirine Falcon.
> And finally Matt scouted Cape May Island south of the canal.  Alot of you 
> have birded Cape May Island and are familiar with all the hotspots, The 
> Beanery, Higbee's, The Meadows, ect...  We spend alot of time on the 
> island searching for migrants, doing sea watches, and checking the sky for 
> raptors. Scouting the island also means going around and schmoozing with 
> all the bird heads that are hanging out and finding out what everybody 
> else is seeing.  Matt knows everyone and seemed to glean very key bits of 
> advice and information from all the right people.
> We started the competition at midnight Friday/Saturday and turned our list 
> sheet in at 11:40pm Saturday night.  Everyone held up well.  By night fall 
> Saturday we were down to getting only three reasonable birds which were 
> Gray-cheeked Thrush, Swainson's Thrush, and Black-billed Cuckoo.  We found 
> a secluded street in the middle of town with a park bench and sat down and 
> listened.  Except it wasn't that easy.  The wind was blowing and was cold. 
> Did I mention that it was really cold.  We sat outside waiting for fight 
> calls and was finally rewarded with a Swainson's Thrush fly over.  That 
> put us at 179 we really wanted 180 so we continued to sit in the cold 
> until Captain Hafner (He made us call him Captain) decided to call it 
> quits.  We would settle for 179.
> Throughout the day we had triumphs and major downers.  We ended up missing 
> all the rarities except  White-faced Ibis. We must have hit Mark Garland's 
> back yard six different times looking for the damn White-winged Dove that 
> had been so easy the day before.  We sat on Stone Harbor Blvd. waiting for 
> the Eurasian Collared-Dove to show up at its alloted time of 6:30pm.  At 
> 6:35 we decided we had wasted enough time and drove off.  Paul Lehman 
> would later tell us not even 30 seconds after we pulled off the Dove flew 
> onto the power line directly over where our truck had been sitting.  The 
> Western Grebe that had been a piece of cake all week was nowhere to be 
> seen off Cook's Beach or Reed's Beach.  Other teams got it no problem. 
> But worst of all was missing Peregrine Falcon for the second straight 
> year. While we were scoping Nummy's Island looking for Tricolored Heron 
> and Peregrine Falcon, other teams were driving by checking out where we 
> were looking.  Oh, obviously at the Peregrine Falcon sitting up nicely on 
> the stake out in the marsh they thought.  Well, everyone was shocked that 
> we dipped on the Falcon eventhough we seemed to be looking right at it.
> Highlights on the upside including getting alot of birds that would seem 
> to be easy to many but are really difficult in Cape May County.  Out 
> secret spot for Kingfisher paid off for the second year in a row.  Green 
> Herons turned up three times for us this year -- we missed them last year. 
> Hairy Woodpecker and Wood Ducks were ticked as well as Turkey, Bobwhite, 
> and Black Tern.  All very difficult birds.
> I just want everyone to know how awesome it was to stand on the podium at 
> the awards brunch and be handed the trophy.  When you are in the company 
> of such distinguished birders it sure is nice to see them smiling and 
> clapping at your achievments.  Thanks to MOS who sponsered us and to all 
> the people who supported us with pledges.  George Jett pledged a nice 
> chunk of money and told us he would double it if we beat Michael O'Brian's 
> team.  Will you make the same bet next year George?
>
> Jim Brighton
> Oxford, Md
>
>