Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 22:14:41 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Les Roslund Subject: St Michaels Christmas Count (unofficial results) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-2" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The St Michaels Christmas Count was held on Sunday, Dec 15. Total bird numbers and count day species were very close to the results of 2001 (96 species and 61, 467 individuals). Very few nuthatches of any kind; very few kinglets; several more duck species than in the recent unusually warm years; one huge flock of Wild Turkeys (99 of them); 36,491 Canada Geese (just 350 more than in 2001); one huge flock of Common Grackles (reported as 10,000). There were several quite special birds: Painted Bunting, Rufous Hummingbird, Golden Eagle and Western Gull (3rd year). As mentioned in a separate posting, both the Hummingbird and the Bunting had been around for at least 2 weeks, but were not seen today (12/17). The Western Gull was on a private property site, and did not stay around long enough to get photographed. Due to 'last minute' illness of one of our best counters, the Tilghman Island sector was not covered on Count Day. Today, I paid a visit to that region, and added some shorebirds that do not always show up on our Christmas Counts - Dunlin (20), Sanderling (2), and Semi-palmated Plover (2). Records since 1981 show Semi-palmated Plover in the St Michaels count only in 1992, when a single bird was seen. 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================