Ed, 
Wow, I forgot, I saw the same exact phenomenon last evening at twilight at Deal Island WMA.  It looked exactly like a meteor streaking downward, then it burned out soon before reaching the ground.  It left an illuminated trail of smoke in the glowing afterlight of sunset.  It was quite beautiful and stunning, actually.  I could only assume it was a meteor, though I'm not aware of any major showers right now.  Either that or a falling piece of space debris.
Ross

--- On Tue, 1/19/10, Ed Boyd <> wrote:

From: Ed Boyd <>
Subject: Re: [MDOSPREY] Razorbill at OC Inlet
To: 
Date: Tuesday, January 19, 2010, 8:49 PM

Regarding this, Jim Stasz, Bob Ringler and I were at the inlet last evening for about 2 hours as the sun set. We returned this morning at about 7:30 or so and stayed for an hour or so, left, returned at about 12:30, stayed for about 30 minutes as nothing was happening and were there again for another slow half hour at around 2:00. We had no Razorbills during this time frame. Today was very slow in general at the inlet for us. There were 4 seals on the dock behind the motel on the back side of the inlet and one on the rocks of the south jetty this morning. Jim will be posting the totals for us eventually, I'm sure.

Last evening we had about 10,000 Snow Geese that had been rafting out on the ocean get up and fly inland at sundown while we were at the inlet. We left and went to the Francis Scott Key motel where another 5,000 or so birds continued to fly inland off the ocean overhead. We could only see them by this time due to the lights from the businesses along Rte. 50 shinning on them from below. It was an amazing site.

We had just gotten to the hotel and unloaded when I saw something fall through the atmosphere to the west of us. The object was very bright with bits coming off of it as it fell. It kind of looked like a bottle rocket falling downward. I thought it was just a very bright meteor but it left a smoke trail in the atmosphere. The smoke trail lingered for sometime and it was because of this that we saw the geese come over as I had called Jim and Bob out to look at the trail in the sky. If anyone has any information on this phenomenon, I'd appreciate hearing from you. I have yet to do a search on it since returning home this evening.

Ed Boyd
Westminster, MD
Phil Davis wrote:
> MD Osprey:
> 
> I just got a call from Leo Weigant. He is at the Ocean City, MD Inlet and had just had excellent views of a Razorbill in the middle of the inlet. The bird was found this morning (Tue 19 Jan 2010) by Lance Biechele around 9:25 am and Leo watched it until about 9:35 am when it flew out towards the ocean.
> 
> It sounds like there may be a large influx of Razorbills moving in. Leo said that Lance had heard of very large numbers north of us.
> 
> Good luck.
> 
> Phil
> 
> 
> ==================================
> Phil Davis      Davidsonville, Maryland     USA
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