Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 14:07:36 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "J. B. Churchill" Subject: Good Birding at Lillipons and Monocacy Aquaduct, Harney Roa= d , Hashawa etc. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Hi MDOSPREY, I made very "spur of the moment plans" I started at Lillipons at = 5:30 am on Saturday, I thought I'd have a better chance at finding the Least Bittern that way. It didn't help me. I did hear a Barred Owl vocalizing around 6 am. I also saw 2 Yellow-crowned Night Herons here, lots of Bank Swallows and a few Barn Swallows. Many Green Herons (probably 10 or more= ) and a few Great Egrets. I got the Loggerhead Shrike just down the road by parking near th= e intersection of Oland and Rt 85 and looking back towards where the field meets the woods. There were some hay bales that ran perpendicular to Ola= nd Road out towards the hay carts. I saw the shrike on the fence that parallels the hay bales and also on one of the carts. Returning to this area and the area around Cap Stine Rd later in the afternoon, I did not find any Dickcissels in the area. A quick stop at Nolands Ferry where I picked up a few woodland bi= rds but nothing worth mention, then I was off to Monocacy Aquaduct where I got so= me more Bank Swallows and some Cliff Swallows also. The swallows were flyin= g around the bridge there. An adult Bald Eagle flew down the Monocacy Rive= r towards the Potomac (excellent views and a new sp. for me in MO CO). I cruised the roads in Dickerson and White's Ferry and River Road= ticking off birds that should help me close out a few species and then decided to try and find some shorebirds. Harney Road Ponds did not yield much. I had about 3 Spotted and = 4 Solitary Sandpipers and a single Lesser Yellowlegs in the small impoundme= nt up on the hill and no birds at all in the very wet larger impoundment. I did see an American Snout butterfly near the large impoundment (very cool= ). Then I scooted over to Carroll County for more county listing (I = needed stuff like Am. Kestrel and Common Yellowthroat. I wound up looking mostl= y at butterflies since it was getting later in the day. At Stone Road I go= t my Common Yellowthroat and I got the Kestrel en route to Hawasha Env area. There I saw few birds but I did see what I believe was a Bronze Copper and a Variegated Frittilary, and an anglewing of some sort (comma = or question mark). Then on the way back home, I stopped at North Branch to visit the= PPG ponds finding nothing more than I did at Harney Road. There were about 4= 0 Killdeer there and the habitat looks good. One or two each Solitary and Spotted Sandpipers were there as well. Good Birding to all of you ! J.B. ======================================================== John B. Churchill, M.S. Home (304) 292-5072 GIS Analyst Work (304) 293-4832 West Virginia University ext. 4456 Natural Resource Analysis Center http://www.nrac.wvu.edu/users/jbc ========================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ========================================================================= ===========================================================================