Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2001 08:18:36 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Hilton, Rob" Subject: Dec. 1 and 2, DC Comments: cc: voice@capaccess.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-2" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable At Kenilworth Park in northeast DC on Saturday morning, December 1, I heard one or two invisible American Pipits fly over, followed two hours later by a visible Horned Lark. I flushed an Eastern Meadowlark from the no-mow area that flew out of the park in a high, level, silent flight. Two Common Buckeye butterflies and a dozen Orange Sulphurs were a treat, considering the December date. A Winter Wren sang once. The only sparrows I flushed from the no-mow area were Song Sparrows. At Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens around noon I saw three Red-tailed Hawks in the air at once, 5 Wood Ducks, 3 Hooded Mergansers, and some sort of small dragonfly which zoomed past very quickly. =20 On Sunday, December 2, at Haines Point (East Potomac Park) in DC Lisa Shannon and I saw Merlins five times (we feel that these may have been two or three individuals). We also saw two Peregrine Falcon adults flying over the Potomac, noisily disputing a kill that one was carrying. The smaller bird flew over land and perched in a bare sycamore near the center of the golf course for at least ten minutes; the larger bird continued upriver and was lost from view while we watched the other bird. A perched, rather large, immature Accipiter might have been a Northern Goshawk, but when it flushed it flew low and landed far. =20 Rob Hilton rhilton@csa.com Bethesda, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================