Date: Sat, 15 Apr 2000 10:18:36 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: House Wren back Hi all -- I just returned from two weeks in Israel followed by almost a week with m= y in-laws in England (Barry is still there), and find spring well underway. Much further along than Englnad where a cold April has slowed migration down, very few summer visitors in yet. I am still a bit jet-lagged and somewhat birded-out (really!) so decided to stay in today, prompted also = by the wet morning. However, I was very happy to hear, at 6:30 am as I took out the trash, ou= r "upper yard" House Wren is back and singing his bubbling song from the vicinity of the wren house! The "lower yard" wren has not yet put in an appearance (our garden is large enough to accomodate two territories, as long as we place the two boxes at opposite ends of the property!). I also heard a Towhee calling and a few Golden-crowned Kinglets in the pi= nes. And yes, Israel was great and of course migration in full swing through the Negev and Eilat, where one can see 12K+ White Storks on a day, over 300 Lesser Spotted Eagles in 1 1/2 hours, and lots of jazzy passerines. W= e went because Claudia Wilds once told us that her spring trip to Eilat was= one of her most memoriable experiences. We thought of Claudia often while we enjoyed the miracle of migration... Cheers, Gail Mackiernan ========================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ========================== =============================================== ===========================================================================