Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 15:49:16 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Fred Shaffer Subject: Owls, Sparrows, & mating Kestrels Comments: To: shaffer3@erols.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks to the posts from David Farner, I had a spectacular hour and a half of birding Thursday morning at Kinder Park. The cool spring weather was wonderful and I spent 35 minutes or so admiring an Eastern Screech Owl in a wood duck box at one of the park's ponds. I watched through my scope as the owl had some fitful sleep and occasionally half opened one eye to look around. It is amazing the owl could get any sleep at all with the noisy neighbors (4 Canada Geese). While I was watching the owl, two songbirds flew to a nearby tree, one an Eastern Phoebe and the other an Orange Crowned Warbler. I got good looks at the warbler, with its faint yellow tint below and grayish-olive, nondescript plumage above. As I was trying to take in the details of the warbler, the geese made a tremendous racket. I looked to see what the owl's response would be, but it was gone, I suppose either out of sight in the box or flown away. I than check another pond further back in the park by a green barn/building, where I was treated to six kinds of sparrows, none of which was a House Sparrow. The sparrows were 5 Song Sparrows, 1 Swamp Sparrow, 1 White Throated Sparrow, 1 Chipping Sparrow, 1 Tree Sparrow, and 1 immature White Crowned Sparrow. Nearby, there was also a field full of Robins and several beautiful Eastern Bluebirds. My attention was than drawn to a fracas on one of the utility lines, where I saw two Kestrels. One Kestrel was actually mounted on top of the back of the other Kestrel for around 6 or 7 seconds! I do not know if this is how they mate, but it was quite a feather-raising, high-wire act whatever they were doing. All in all, a great morning of birding. Thanks again for the posts, David. Fred Shaffer Crofton, Anne Arundel Pamthept@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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================