Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 07:46:19 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Rick Sussman Subject: Re: signs of spring MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, I snuck off yesterday AM (Friday ) for about an hour to do some local birding along Tucker Lane in Ashton, specifically to see if any early waterthrushes or N. Parulas had arrived. Didn't find (or hear) any of these, but did hear a song I don't hear all that often aroud here, and with more than a single individual singing. There must have been a large fallout of FOX SPARROWS from the overnight rains on Thursday evening, as there were at least 2 dozen (probably more) of these handsome birds foraging along the road and in the shrubs by the side of the road. Many were singing, but few calling. They were in groups of as many as 6 birds together on the ground, with White-throated and Songs, Dark-eyed Juncos and at least one Swamp Sparrow.They were scratching, feeding and foraging on both sides of the road in the grassy margin and in the shrubs further back, landing up in low trees to watch me. I have never seen this many in one place; it was quite fantastic! I hope to get back this morning to see if they've left, and to check out the river for early migrants... Rick Sussman Ashton,MD warblerick@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================