Gary Allport wrote:

>Dear All
>
>Budding seabirder that I am I was wondering anyone might advise on the best 
>place and conditions to sea decent seabirds - e.g. petrels, shearwaters & 
>jaegers - in MD?  Looking at the map and reading the MD Osprey archives I 
>presume that the Ocean City area is best and one would need a stiff onshore 
>(easterly) to stand a chance of seeing anything. Most of the birds seem to 
>be seen in early June so I was thinking of trekking over from DC to the 
>OC/Assateague area to give it a go if the weather looked right.
>
>Any advice on exact locations and conditions would be gratefully received.
>
>Cheers 
>
>Gary Allport
>
>
>PS and please don't tell me I'm mad to even think about trying such a 
>caper - I already know that.
>
>
>  
>
Ocean City is the spot, but a boat is best.  Paul Guris runs trips out 
of that-forbidden-state-to-the-north-of-Ocean-City that go into Maryland 
waters.  See <http://www.paulagics.com/> for a schedule.  If you want to 
go on your own schedule, you can try going out on one of the fishing 
head boats from Ocean City, but Paul has excellent spotters and looks 
for birds, not fish (the two are fairly often in the same spots to be 
sure)  Highly recommended, and I don't even serve as a spotter for him.

One big advantage of a boat is that you can go out at times of the year 
when pelagic birds from shore are even rarer than normal.

-- 

Maurice Barnhill 
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Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716