Dorchester County, MD Sunday January 14, 2007
Raptor Society of Metropolitan Washington – 2007 Mid-Winter Raptor Census – 
Joan Boudreau and Bob Abrams.
Thought I might let some of you know about this crazy thing that we do in mid-
January - it keeps us busy. For some twenty + years now the Raptor Society 
has been hosting a raptor-watching field trip with documentation, which 
involves several teams of individuals driving around mapped-out areas in the 
D.C. area in order to view (traditionally band) and document raptor sightings. 
Bob and I have been conducting our Census for Dorchester County for the last 
couple of years as we had become a bit depressed about the shortage of 
raptors in a census area we covered for several years, south and west of 
Frederick, MD.  The aim is to get to your area by daylight, drive every road 
and make note of every bird. The reality is that you do the best you can. 
Yesterday, Sunday 14 January, we had what looks to be an about average 
day for the roads we’re able to cover in the County with a total of 89 raptors 
(not including vultures).  We drove 140 miles in Dorchester County between 
9:20am and 5:50pm ending up on Elliott Island Road, where we saw or heard 
all of our owls. Fifty of the birds noted were Bald Eagles (at least 24 adults), 
one Cooper’s Hawk, 3 American Kestrels (2 males), 9 Red-Tailed Hawks, 18 
Northern Harriers, 4 Great Horned Owls (one beautiful almost-silhouetted 
view), 3 Short-Eared Owls, 1 Eastern Screech-Owl.  Accipiters tend to be hit-
or-miss birds and they’re generally seen whipping across the road in front of 
you.  Kestrels were all seen on telephone wires and hunting smaller enclosed 
fields near Cambridge.  The Short-Eareds were seen on Elliott Island Road.

As a note, it’s hard to avoid noticing the other birds species about as well.  
The most notable of Sunday’s were the 100 some Tree Swallows in two areas.  
We also had one Sedge Wren and two Marsh Wrens, two Woodcocks, one 
displaying, and two Virginia and one King Rail both calling all also along Elliott 
Island Road.