Hi Everyone,

My wife Carol and I have recently moved back to Maryland after living
in Texas for the past 16 years.  Since returning, we have joined the
Tri-County Bird Club and MOS, and I signed onto MDOSPREY a little over a
month ago.  We’ve really appreciated the great information and the
friendly birders we’ve met so far.  It feels good to be home!

We’ve come up with a little game to try to get up to speed on
Maryland birding and to put a little play into our spring break.  (Carol
unfortunately will miss the first part owing to her school schedule, but
will join in for the rest).  Between 15 and 23 March, we’re going to
attempt to bird in every MD county.  And for kicks, we’ve set
ourselves the challenge of 1000 total ticks for these nine days of
birding.  We have birded in fewer than half of MD’s counties so far,
but I hope that this big week will produce a few of those “county
close-outs” that we’ve been hearing about.

So we’re writing for a little help.  If you have a favorite birding
spot in your home county, we’d love to hear about it.  If you’d like
to reply off-list, we’ll be happy to post a summary of the responses. 
We have Claudia Wilds’ book Finding Birds in the National Capital
Area, The Baltimore Bird Club’s A Birder’s Guide to Baltimore and
Baltimore County, Maryland, and a Maryland/Delaware DeLorme Atlas.

We will keep the list updated about our progress during the week—the
Home Again Tour we’re calling it—and will be sure to post any
sightings that may be of general interest.  We will also be submitting
all of our observations to eBird.

Thanks for any help you can offer!  Have fun,

Ron Gutberlet
Salisbury, MD