Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 20:08:43 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Arlene Ripley Subject: Ocean City Inlet, Razorbill etc. Comments: To: md-smas@yahoogroups.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed I arrived at Ocean City inlet about 11:30 this morning (3/1). I was able to locate one vigorously feeding Razorbill among a large flock of Bonaparte's Gulls and the largest gathering of Red-throated Loons I have ever seen. I stopped counting after 35 birds. A good number of Common Loons were present also. Naturally most of the birds were in the water where the sun's glare was the worst and the seas were pretty rough forcing me back from the tip of the north jetty because of the waves splashing water on the rocks (and me) so unfortunately no photos. Around 1:30, when the sun had moved more westerly, the Razorbill stopped feeding for a while and sat on the surface of the water preening for a few minutes, affording much better views. The south jetty was full of birds -- besides gulls, there were at least 5 0 Ruddy Turnstones, a fair number of Purple Sandpipers (hard to count at that distance), a few Brant, an American Oystercatcher, and a flock of a dozen or so Harlequin Ducks, many of which were out of the water, sitting on the rocks of the jetty. Also saw a single Horned Grebe. Great day. ///////// Arlene Ripley | || Calvert County, MD | 0 || aripley@nestbox.com | || http://www.nestbox.com || ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================