Hi All,

Just to set the record straight, Stan was misinformed and there was a 
Southern Maryland Audubon Bird-a-thon.  It's purpose this year is to 
raise money for the children's binocular fund.  We are hoping to inspire 
another generation of birders!  If anyone feels this is a worthy cause 
we are always willing to accept donations  and you can contact George 
Jett, Kyle Rambo, or me.  Kyle and I manned the only team to participate 
this year.  We (the St. Mary's County team) had 138 species, but nothing 
rare like the Mississippi Kite!  We were a little short of our high last 
year of 144 species.  We did have some good sparrows, Seaside and both 
sharp-tailed sparrows (Satlmarsh and Nelson's), White-crowned and 
Lincoln's Sparrow.  We had no night birds due to the weather except 
Black-crowned Night-Heron and the ones that we knew the location of the 
nests.

Good Birding,
Patty Craig
Dameron, St. Mary's County, MD


Stan said;

"Hi Folks,

I spent the entire day yesterday (Sat., 2 May) with George Jett and Gwen Brewer, doing essentially a Charles Co. big day,
 which is normally part of the So. MD Birdathon, which event didn't really take place this year, but we pretended it did.
 We finished the day with a little more than 120 species, way down from last years event which yeilded about 140. 
 Reasons: (1) virtually NO MIGRANTS!  Veery and Black-throated Green Warbler (Gwen only)and a few shorebirds were the
 only migrants I recall; (2) almost no waterfowl:  time and priorities kept us from visiting the WWTP near Cobb Island,
 and most ducks seem to have been pushed out by last weekend's heat wave; and (3) only five species of shorebird, despite
 what appeared to be ideal conditions.  Nevertheless, we did have some nice birds, with the unmitigated highlight being
 MISSISSIPPI KITE at Port Tobacco, which George thought was a 4th count
y record, his second, and a county bird for Gwen
 and of course for me.  Oh, I guess this was a migrant, too."MD