Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 21:30:40 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Matt Hafner Subject: morning and evening in Harford MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I birded the early morning with my friend Kevin Fehskens behind house. The day contained all of the usuals and unfortunately not our target Dickcissel (the habitat just looks right). Anyway the day was pretty uneventful until Kevin spotted Orchard Orioles in the a line of trees. As we searched for better looks at the orioles, we spotted a warbler flitting around. The next thing I knew, we were staring at a Nashville Warbler. The bird was a first fall female. I did a little research when I got home to double check myself on such an early date. That bird made the early morning worthwhile. In the evening I decided to enjoy lowtide at Harve de Grace. As I scanned the flats, I noticed a small white heron on the flats. SNOWY EGRET! This bird has been a county nemesis. I couldn't believe last week when I got Tricolored Heron before Snowy Egret. Also on the flats were a Great Egret and an imm. Little Blue Heron. As the sun set, birds continued to pour into the flats. Forester's Tern numbers were way up while Caspian Terns were way down. With swallows, there was and odd lack of Tree Swallows. Granted, most swallows were left unidentified, but of the ones I did ID, there was only 1 Tree with atleast 50 Bank. Laughing Gulls are also starting to come in. Here are some estimates: Great Blue Heron - 20 Great Egret - 1 Snowy Egret -1 Little Blue Heron - 1 Mute Swan - 1 Canada Goose - 75 Mallard - 25 Black Duck - 10 Wood Duck - 9 Spotted Sandpiper - 2 Laughing Gull - 4, 2 ad., 1 juv. , 1 1st-sum Ring-billed Gull - 300 Herring Gull - 10 Great Black-backed Gull - 65 Caspian Tern - 2 Forester's Tern - 50 Chimney Swift - 200 Tree Swallow - only 1 definite Bank Swallow - 50 Barn Swallow - 100 Purple Martin - 100 Swallow sp. - 1000 probably more Matt Hafner Bel Air, MD ========================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ========================================================================== ==========================================================================