Date: Sun, 13 May 2001 16:18:03 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Michael Bowen Subject: May Count results, Montgomery County Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed All: Joy and I had 69 species May 12 in our usual May Count area, which lies along the C&O Canal and adjacent woods along the Potomac, from the Beltway Bridge (end of Dick Homan's sector - he's already posted his summary here) up through Carderock Recreation Area to Old Angler's Inn, where Dave Winer's sector begins. 69 is about average over the years, given not too much habitat variety. While migrant numbers were low, same as earlier in the week, there was enough action to keep things reasonably interesting. The 11 warbler species were mostly local breeders, with 12 PARULA, 1 BLACK-THROATED BLUE, 3 YELLOW-RUMPED, 1 YELLOW-THROATED (lower than in the past), 1 CERULEAN, 3 REDSTART, 6 PROTHONOTARY (high number), 1 OVENBIRD, 2 LA.WATERTHRUSH, 1 KENTUCKY, 1 COMMON YELLOWTHROAT. Also had 4 WARBLING VIREO and 4 YELLOW-THROATED VIREO. WAXWINGS were everywhere - our count of 110 is probably way low. Swallows were unusually low - we had only 2 TREE and 3 ROUGH-WINGED. Has anyone else noticed that swallows are way down from their usual numbers at this stage in the migration? We had 2 BALD EAGLES, one a full adult and one a younger one with an almost white head and blotchy elsewhere. (I've been meaning to read that young eagle i.d. article in a recent Birding magazine but haven't yet.) CANADA GOOSE pairs along the canal have lost a lot of their young ones already, presumably to snapping turtles. We had 32 adults and only 20 young in total. Thank goodness there is some natural predation going on. Broods that numbered 10-12 only a week ago are now numbering 2 or 3. Mike Bowen Bethesda MD D.H. Michael Bowen 8609 Ewing Drive Bethesda MD 20817 (Montgomery County) Tel.: (301)530-5764 dhmbowen@yahoo.com _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================