Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 11:56:10 -0700 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Charlie Subject: Western MD breeders MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hi folks, Well, break out those parkas. If the birds are any sign, winter is acomin'. Green Ridge SF has been quiet as a morgue lately. Still plenty of birds to see, but you folks who bird by ear will get little practice here. I have heard exactly one Worm-eating Warbler in 3 weeks. Seen a bunch, but not so many as when they were all nesting. We haven't come across an active nest for WEWA or for Ovenbird in nearly a month now. One OVEN fledgling on Thursday looked like it was only a day or two out of the nest, so there may be some late ones out there. Red-eyed Vireos and Scarlet Tanagers are mostly out of the nest, with lots of fledglings out there, and many already independant. Territories are no longer defended in nearly every case. Even the Hermit and Wood Thrushes are pretty much all off the nest. Interestingly, the Blue-headed Vireos seem to have recently INcreased their singing. In the last 2 weeks I have heard more than during all of June. Most of them seemed to shut up at the end of May. They were here - we were seeing them, and found a couple nests, but didn't hear singing. We did hear the interesting mew call of the BHVI lots of times, and used it in locating nests and fledglings. The last 2 weeks we've been seeing lots of migrants. I may have mentioned a Prothonatary I had in the middle of the woods a week and a half ago. Today I had a large mixed group of birds in one area (I hesitate to use the word flock here) that included 2 BLACK-billed Cuckoos and a Baltimore Oriole. All very interesting birds for where I was. Along the lines of migration (I presume and hope)are the missing birds: nearly all the Louisiana Waterthrushes, a big chunk of the American Redstarts, one of the 2 Magnolia Warbler families, one of the 2 Canada Warbler families. Savage River SF is still pretty busy, with lots of birds just coming off the nest. Of note was a Dark-eyed Junco "family" I had last week in a well-known Junco territory. 3 Fledglings of the age we'd expected, a female, and *2* males all travelling together. In the neighborhood in Frostburg (ok, we were too-well trained) the Robins have all fledged, and only one of the 5 families is still with the adults. Chimney Swifts are seen entering chimneys in large groups, so we presume breeding has ended for them as well. The male Kestrel who hunted the lower end of the street every afternoon has not been seen in 2 weeks, (but the one in Cumberland who always perches on the wire on the south side of I-68 by the bridge is still there every late morning). All those damn European birds continue to spread like the plague as well. Song Sparrows and the lone House Wren across the street are still singing, but not so much. Have a great day. Charlie ===== **************************************** Charlie Muise, Naturalist Frostburg, Maryland, USA And it came to pass that in the hands of the ignorant, the words of the Bible were used to beat plowshares into swords - Alan Wilson= Watts __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail =96 Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/ ========================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ========================================================================= ===========================================================================