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Subject:

Common Teal - not at Truitt's today, 1/30/10

From:

James Tyler Bell

Reply-To:

James Tyler Bell

Date:

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:22:51 -0800

Jane Kostenko and I drove over to Truitt's Landing early this morning hoping to beat the snowstorm and see the reported Common Teal. We were successful in neither venture. When we arrived, the pool that Jeff commented on was filled with 18 Tundra Swans and nothing else. Since the temps were in the teens, I suspect that it has frozen in more since yesterday. The Bay had only 8 Buffleheads. There were two trucks parked at the landing, one of which had launched a boat. Waterfowl hunting certainly isn't going to help things! We drove over to Scott's Landing, the next area to the north and found pretty much the same thing except no swans, but a couple dozen Herring Gulls. The only consolation was a Sedge Wren at Truitt's that did its double tap note as we were packing up our optics.

As we had been heading to Truitt's, the snow began to fall and the roads on the bay were getting covered by the time we left. As we got toward the Chesapeake Bay bridge, the roads were becoming bad with the left lane disappearing at times. By the time we got to Calvert, we were virtually crawling and there was only a single track right lane. St. Mary's County roads were abyssmal and when we turned into our developmenst, I popped the Explorer into 4-Low just to get to our house. We had 7 inches of snow at 1:15 and it's been snowing pretty hard so I'm assuming that we're up to 8 by now.

Our resident Hermit Thrush and Brown Thrasher are hogging their respective feeders and there's quite a crowd of White-throated Sparrows and DE Juncos underneath. The thistle feeders are packed to capacity with Am. Goldfinches. 

So not looking forward to digging out again tomorrow.
 
Tyler Bell

California, Maryland 



----- Original Message ----
From: Jeff Shenot <>
To: 
Sent: Fri, January 29, 2010 8:39:04 PM
Subject: [MDOSPREY] Common Teal - not at Truitt's today

I tried today at Truitt's Landing but had no luck, and wanted to update in case any other folks may want to try this weekend.  I wish I had got there earlier in the day.  While I was looking, there was a lot of heat shimmer (despite the frigind temps!) and there were no teal visible.  It may not have mattered since others found teal earlier in the morning but were unsuccessful with finding a Common.  I talked to some folks who were there early and they saw a large flock of teal, but due to the cold much of the water present is frozen which was problematic for viewing for two reasons.  The open water is very distant from the road, and also it has concentrated the birds into a small area making for tight bunching and little movement.  Plus, the other birds included about 100 Canada and 15 Tundra Swans which make it very difficult to see smaller birds among them.

I was there about two hours.  I arrived at 11:35, and after a while we finally observed one flock of about 60-70 teal passing by, and they showed interest in landing at the open water area, but the teal found the conditions unfavorable and kept going.  We saw several small groups (8-20) pass by also.  We looked at the fly-bys the best we could but nothing jumped out as a possibility.  It was difficult to look carefully due to the biting cold wind.  Very hard on the eyes!

After the folks left I saw a big teal group land out on Brockatonorton Bay, north of the landing.  There were about 110 teal, and with my scope I was able to scan them well enough, but saw no Common Teal.

After that I left and looked at Taylors Landing, but saw very few birds present there, only a few gulls.

I would say with the cold temps that conditions there may worsen, and if anyone wants to try for the Common Teal they should try to focus on any area near there with open wwater.  Good luck!

Jeff Shenot
Croom Md