Howdy folks!  I am going to do the Bowie CBC tomorrow (Jan 1) and will be doing some scouting today since most of the area I am assigned to I have never birded in before.   The area includes Largo, Landover, Seat Pleasant, Kettering and Woodmore.  It is heavily developed but has many parks and areas of fields and woods, and there are many ponds and a few lakes but I don't have much knowledge of the habitat values.   It is bounded roughly by Rt 50 to the north, and the intersection of Rt 50 and Rt 202 to the west (inside 495 beltway), a large powerline running north/south as the eastern boundary, and the southern arc of the count circle is the southern boundary (roughly between 214 and 202).  This is a very large territory and I cannot possibly cover it well, so I intend to ignore the industrial areas and large subdivisions (unless advised otherwise!) and focus on areas that hold good habitat.

Although I have asked quite a few people to join me, so far I am going alone.  If anyone is interested in joining me please call me today at 301-580-4524.

I also wanted to mention a few notes on Jug Bay area.  I am off this week and was enjoying a "slow" day playing with my kids at home, so all of the viewing was from our house on the PG side.  I had hoped to scan the big gull flocks for goodies, and I did, but there were very few gulls present despite the perfect weather conditions for gulls.  The problem was due to the presence of many eagles!  I don't know how many were around here since they moved around frequently and were here all day, but the most I saw at one time was 6 (all in same area, sitting on the ice!).

I saw 44 species here at the house yesterday but had no uncommon gulls and only had a high of 420 gulls (there have been as many as 2300 at one time during the last few days) here.  Other hi-lites were the continuing Fox Sparrow and Am Tree Sparrow at our feeders.  The FOSP and ATSP seem to have settled here, they are seen randomly now throughout the day at the feeders.

Give me a call if you want to join me for the Christmas Bird Count tomorrow, and -

Happy New Year to all!
Jeff Shenot
Croom Md