[MDOsprey] Floyd birds - late rpt

Greg Miller (hawk-owl@yahoo.com)
Fri, 24 Sep 1999 04:42:33 -0700 (PDT) 

Howdy All!

Sorry this is late.  One of the casualties of Floyd
was my PC.  Fortunately, it's back and functional once
again. 

Thurs - 9/16
Zoomed down to Pt Lookout...ok...zoom, NOT.  It took
45 minutes to test my truck's clearance on the
water-covered roads near Pt Lookout.  When I got to
the park it was barracaded due to flooding...duh!  So
I turned around and headed for Cornfield Harbor--an Ok
consolation.  I met with high water there as well, but
decided not to chance the crossing (gt 1 ft deep). 
Frustrated, I headed back home to watch the Patuxent
from my house.  There, I read a message from Kyle
about the terns at the Base.  My computer fried while
I was reading the message!  I was putting on my coat
again and looked out the window just in time to get a
new yard bird--a Peregrine Falcon!  Hastily, I rushed
back out to my truck, finagled a turnaround (driveway
was blocked with a downed tree), and rushed back to
base where Kyle was waiting.  It had been over 2 hrs
since the Bridled and Sooty Terns had been seen.  We
were able to dig up an imm. Black Tern in a flock of
100+ Common & Forster's Terns.  In a far distant flock
were 3 dark-backed terns which defied identification. 
The strong wind made giz birding far more difficult. 
Other birds for the day included a distant Great Blue
Heron soaring into the wind, Herring, Ring-billed, and
Laughing Gulls, and Canada Geese in a cornfield, fair
numbers of Great Black-backed Gulls enjoying the wind,
and a few Starlings and Mourning Doves on the wires. 
Only unusual sighting was a Common Tern over the
K-Mart parking lot in Lexington Park. <grin>

Friday 9/17
Off from work.  With Pt Lookout closed, I decided to
set up shop in my backyard in Hollywood and watch the
Patuxent River.  Here's the list:

Cool. 60 F.  Very slight breeze from NW.  Cloudless
skies.  40 species.  (species listed in order of
occurrence)

 4 Carolina Wren
 4 N Cardinal
 1 E Towhee
 8 Blue Jay
 3 Carolina Chickadee
 2 Red-bellied Woodpecker
 1 White-breasted Nuthatch (resident)
 1 Downy Woodpecker
55 Laughing Gull
12 Canada Goose
 8 Osprey
 1 Blue Grosbeak (female)
 1 Indigo Bunting (female)
 3 Am Redstart
 1 Common Loon
16 Forster's Tern
 7 Common Tern
 1 House Wren
 4 Red-eyed Vireo
 2 N Mockingbird (1 juv)
 1 Gray Catbird
 8 Common Crow
15 Double-crested Cormorant
 2 Royal Tern
 2 Caspian Tern
 2 Mallard
 2 Great Blue Heron
11 Mute Swan
32 Turkey Vulture (max count seen at once)
 5 Bald Eagle (2ad, 2 2nd yr, 1 juv)
 9 Black Vulture
 2 Am Goldfinch
 1 Sharp-shinned Hawk
11 Ring-billed Gull
26 Herring Gull
 9 Great Black-backed Gull
 1 Am Kestrel
 2 Fish Crow
20 E Starling
 1 N Flicker
13 crow sp.

-Greg Miller
Hollywood, MD
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