Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 16:05:45 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Michael Bowen Subject: Western Kingbird Comments: cc: Voice of the Naturalist Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Here's a little more information on the adult Western Kingbird I saw this morning, Monday November 5, in Layhill Park, Montgomery County: I first saw the bird just before 10 a.m., when I was returning from the south area of the park, a part noted for sparrows (I had Field and Fox, Song and White-throated). There is some red plastic barrier material in the middle of the soccer field just south of the last parking lot in the park; this field is the shortest route between parking and the south trail area. The Kingbird was perched on one of the posts holding up the red plastic. Two Eastern Bluebirds perched on adjacent posts gave an immediate feel for the larger size of the kingbird. It was noticeably bigger, even to the naked eye - range about 20 yards. Through binoculars, the smallish dark bill, uniform light grey head, back and upper chest and very yellow contrasting belly area, together with darker grey wings and dark upper tail surface could be well seen. There was the faintest suspicion of a dark line through the eye, confirmed later in the scope view. The white outer tail feathers could not be distinguished on the perched bird, but were noticeable when the bird later flew to a sapling at the edge of the mowed area. I went back to my car, fetched the telescope and watched the bird off and on for another 35 minutes, while calling lots of other people on my cell phone. (Most were at work, of course.) Not a single person, birder or otherwise, was to be seen in the vicinity, with the exception of a County school bus driver taking a break. The first person to get out to the park after my phone calls was Lydia (Voice of the Naturalist) Schindler, who posted the earlier message here, for which I thank her. Lydia was closely followed by Jane Winer and Dick Homan. Unfortunately, we could not re-find the bird in any of the open areas of Layhill Park, and we also made a brief foray to the golf course just to the north. By this time, around midday, the wind had come up quite strongly and a man with two unleashed dogs was in the soccer field. As it happens I have seen Western, Cassin's and Couch's Kingbirds in good numbers in Colorado, California and Texas (respectively) during 2001, so I was in better than usual shape for a Montgomery County birder to i.d. this one as a Western. This bird is an accidental in our county, though a regular straggler to the east coast at this time of year. The last time I saw the bird was at about 10:40 a.m. 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================