Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2000 17:31:03 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Rob (Robert) Hilton" Subject: Mountain Bluebird in DC Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi, I dashed in to my office to get word out about a female Mountain Bluebird Lisa Shannon and I saw this morning. The bird was in the clearing behind the Maintenance Yard, near the Visitors Center. Directions should be in the second edition of Claudia Wilds's DC area bird-finding guide, and are appended below. At about 8:15 am (1 1/2 hours or so after sunrise) we were trying to relocate two or three Purple Finches when I happened to look up at a close low tree, at a bird close to the top. After a few seconds of puzzlement, I realized that the bird was a bluebird. After a few more seconds, I realized that this bluebird had no overt orange. It enventually "resolved itself into a very gray Bluebird with a bluer tail", as Lisa succinctly notes. The tail and primaries were fairly blue. The rest of the upperparts including the head appeared pale gray or very pale brownish, depending on the angle of the bird relative to the sun as well the observer. There was a small white area on the chin, and there was another short white streak closer to the cheeks, separated from the chin by a thin streak of the grayish color. The throat, breast, and flanks were essentially the same grayish color as the upperparts, with a hint of orange across the middle breast in some views. The bird was some 25 to 50 feet from us. It flew four times, eventually flying off into a group of small treest. Since the bird was never that close to eye level it was hard to see exactly how long the wings were, but I felt that they were long in comparison to Eastern Bluebird. It was also hard to get a satisfactory look at the bill, but it appeared to be solid black and it seemed to be relatively long compared to Eastern Bluebird. We watched the bird for about (10-)15 minutes. We left the clearing over half an hour later without ever relocating the bird. People searching for it from about 12:45 (?) to sometime near 4 pm failed to relocate it. A full description will be submitted to the Maryland/DC records committee. The big field at the southwest corner of Military Road and Glover Road struck several observers as better habitat for a misplaced Mountain Bluebird than the small Maintenance Yard area. NOTA BENE: The Maintenance Yard (and the likely the clearing) will have workers, machinery, noise, you name it, during the week. It can be very noisy there. Directions to the clearing: Take Military Road from Connecticut Avenue east, or 16th Street NW west. Once on Military Road, proceed to the traffic light at Glover Road (first light you encounter if coming from 16th Street). At Glover Road, turn south (right if coming from Connecticut Avenue) into the park, fork left, then take the first left to the Nature Center parking lot. From their, walk about 100 yards to, then through, the horse stable area, with a long double-building complex on your right. Look for the wide path to your left which goes downhill into the woods. After about 200 yards you will see an open area and path on your right. The bird was in the back end of the clearing, perching in or near the tops of small trees (12-25 feet in height). Best, Rob Hilton robert@csa.com Bethesda Md. ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================