Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 00:29:30 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Marshall Iliff Subject: Clay-colored Sparrow still at Kinder Farm Park 21 May Comments: cc: Georgearmistead@aol.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, This evening (21 May) at 6:00 p.m. I was treated to good views of the singing Clay-colored Sparrow at Kinder Farm Park. It sang intermittently (once every 2 minutes) from various perches as though defending territory. Also in the same area I spished up a Lincoln's Sparrow. Since directions have not yet been posted here, I provide the following: To reach Kinder Farm Park, exit Rte. 97 and get on Benfield Blvd. going towards Severna Park. Go 2.3 miles to a left at the stoplight for Jumper's Hole Rd.. Go left here and continue through a couple stoplights to a left on Kinder Farm Park Rd. at 1.2 mi. The park is open dawn to dusk (8:30 p.m. currently). To find the area where the Clay-colored Sparrow has been seen, continue along Kinder Farm Park Rd. 0.5 mi to the end. Park in the parking lot by the pavilion marked "River Birch Pavilion". Take the gated gravel road that goes right from the end of Kinder Farm Park Rd. and make a left after 200 ft on the paved hiking/biking trail. Follow this about 0.2 mi to the first obvious gravel trail to the left (anohtert gravel trail takes off to the right). Go down this trail and make an immediate right on a mowed grass path. Follow this 100 ft to where bluebird box #9 is seen on your right. I saw the sparrow singing from bushes around the trail between box #9 and box #8 a little farther along. The Lincoln's Sparrow was close to box #9. Thanks to Dotty Mumford and Linda Baker for finding the bird, to Hal Wierenga to providing me directions over the phone, and to others who have posted about this bird. A comment: Dave and others keeping track of this bird should be alert to the possibility of nesting. Clay-colored Sparrow has recently been expanding its breeding range east, and last year was confirmed nesting in Pennsylvania. First nesting records have also recently come from Maine and other New England states. George Armistead recently asked me what I thought the next MD breeding species would be, and Clay-colored Sparrow was among my top 5. Given that this bird has been present over a week and seems to be defending territory, nesting must be considered a possibility, albeit a remote one. I stayed around and watched the bird for 20 minutes and saw no signs of a mate or further nesting evidence. Hybridization is known in _Spizella_ sparrows and several Field Sparrows are in the same area. I hope Dave and others will post if there are any developments. Good birding, Marshall Iliff *********************** Marshall Iliff miliff@aol.com Annapolis, MD ************************ ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================