Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 00:23:18 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Joel Martin Subject: Southwest Area Park, Baltimore County, 2/9/02 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Today I spent a few hours at Southwest Area Park, near Lansdowne in Baltimore County. This is one of those many areas I had never visited despite its being close to home (it's the open space that you see on the north side of the Patapsco River as you're driving east on the Harbor Tunnel Thruway toward the city). The park once had a bad reputation as a sort of seedy spot; now the druggies and hookers seem to be gone but so, apparently, is much of the habitat. The whole area from the baseball field back to the marsh, which once was probably good grassland, is being graded for what looks like athletic fields. Does anyone know what the plan is here? Anyway, I found 1 Am. Tree Sparrow near the marsh, and 3 Fox Sparrows by the light rail tracks. There were many Red-winged Blackbird flocks in the treetops. The place may have potential for Rustys in the spring. I didn't see or hear any pheasants, although they may still be hanging on, but I doubt there will be many more Short-eared Owls or Harriers. Raptors seen today were Red-tailed Hawk, Sharpie and an obvious pair of Red-shouldered Hawks. The best spectacle was the huge blackbird flock flying over the Beltway at dusk on the way home. Joel Martin Catonsville, MD jcdlmartin@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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================