Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 20:12:42 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Les Roslund Subject: Painted Bunting and Rufous Hummingbird in Talbot County MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-2" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On Friday the 13th, a lucky home-owner in St Michaels reported a Painted Bunting in her yard making very regular use of her feeders. This bird, first sighted on Dec 2, seems to have stayed right there through all our cold and snow, even though the home owners were out of town from the 2nd to the 12th. The bird is probably a first year male, (as judged by Jim Stasz) for there are hints or tinges of blue and red in the otherwise beautiful green plumage of the bird. The home owners have taken numerous excellent pictures with their digital camera. (Sorry, this is not a full plumage beautiful mature male - but a real beauty anyhow.) But - sad to say - the bird has not been seen today, even though it was present Sunday for the St Michaels Christmas Count, and was still present on Monday. If this bird returns, I will promptly provide information on how to reach the home owners in order to get a chance to see it. Its feeding place is so sheltered that it can only be seen by looking through the sun room window from inside the house. Saturday night, right before the St Michaels Count Day, a home owner near the village Claiborne (west of St Michaels) reported a Rufous Hummingbird - and also noted the bird had been sharing nectar feeders of hers and her neighbors for at least a couple of weeks. Alas, this bird now also seems to be gone. It stayed around through Sunday, so as to be included in our Christmas Count, and having attained that bit of publicity, has apparently departed. Its presence even had been mentioned in the Friday issue of our local Star-Democrat newspaper. As with the Bunting, if the Hummingbird shows up again, I will notify MDOSPREY immediately. Les Roslund Lroslund@bluecrab.org Talbot County Easton, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================