Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2002 14:35:41 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Fred Pierce Subject: Convention birding MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks to the folks who advised me on birding in the Foggy Bottom area. My greeter on Wednesday was a Baltimore Oriole singing enthusiastically on the river front across from the Kennedy Center. No doubt auditioning for a performance - Respighi perhaps? Nothing unusual on my hikes along the Mall to and from the Convention Center - didn't have time to linger though, and there were plenty of songs tempting me to stay around and hunt them out. My trek up the towpath to mile 8 rendered some great looks and a couple of life birds though. First one, an Orchard Oriole was part of the Oriole convention at Fletcher's mentioned elsewhere. A Prothonatary at the Sycamore Island ferry was my second new bird for the day and gets the special prize of being number 200 over all (most were observed between ~ 1958-61. When I resumed serious birding a year or so ago I crossed off a few that I don't recall seeing). Although I missed some of the species mentioned by others here, the hike was punctuated by great looks at familiar species. One highlight was a Pileated working the wood below me, no more than 20 feet away. The sun was full on the bird a lot of the time and he was not at all bothered by my watching. I used to think sometimes that Audubon's portraits were stylistic and exaggerated, but in encounters like this I begin to see that I was wrong. Many more good looks at Prothonatarys and BG Gnatcatchers, a Black Vulture, and several Black-Crowned Night Herons. On my returned trip, I followed the Crescent Trail and encountered an excited couple who wanted to know if I wanted to see a "really cool bird" and if I could identify it for them. Sure enough, it was a night heron with full plume. I let them view the bird with my binoculars and told them a bit about it. They were looking forward to getting home and reading more about it and other such birds. Nice to think a chance encounter might lead to a couple of new birders. Would like to have had a quick look at Roosevelt Island but the wet this morning plus a *slight* soreness from yesterday's hike made me decide to call it a week. fdp -------------------------------------------------------------------- Fred Pierce (DNRC)- fpierce@avialantic.com Mid-Atlantic Aviation on the Web - http://www.avialantic.com ** Mid Atlantic Air Museum WWII Weekend Airshow June 7-9 2002 and Planes, Trains, & Automobiles Transporation Show Sept. 21-22 2002 - www.maam.org ** *** World Airshow News - www.worldairshownews.com ** --------------------------------------------------------------------- ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================