Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 08:15:46 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding <MDOSPREY@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM> Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding <MDOSPREY@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM> From: Rick Sussman <Warblerick@AOL.COM> Subject: MOS trip, Triadelphia Lake Rd. area, Sunday April 28 Comments: To: voice@capaccess.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, I led an MOS scheduled to the Triadelphia Lake Rd. area of the Patuxent River watershed of Montgomery County on Sunday April 28. First, let me commend the 3 stalwarts (read crazies) who attended; Jim Green, Clive Harris, and Gemma Radko. We did not cancel because of the weather, which was; rain early in the trip, followed by showers, heavy downpours, drizzle, and perhaps 30 minutes of light rain. Anyway, due to the closure of Triadelphia Lake Rd. boat launch, we were asked to go in by way of Patuxent River State Park, at Georgia Ave,. where it meets the Patuxent. This proved to be an absolutely beautiful walk through woods full of wild ravines and lots of undergrowth, the river running wild over large rocks and boulders. Mostly, because of the rain, we birded by ear, using umbrellas when viewing anything worth seeing to keep the rain off. Early on we had views of both Red-eyed and Blue-headed Vireos, and a single Yellow-rumped Warbler and a pair of Black&whites. Hermit thrushes were present in the woods, offering decent looks. The woods along the "lake" region (which is so low they have closed the area to fisherman) held singing Worm-eating warbler, Pine Warbler, and N. Parulas were all over. Ovenbirds sang from the woods, one giving us nice close looks. A pair of Louisiana Waterthrushes sang. A walk up the cemetary trail gave us our "best" bird, a beautiful male (singing) Blackburnian Warbler. It was down fairly low (by Blackburnian standards), and present during a brief respite in the rain. At the top of the hill, by the cemetary, we had singing meadowlark, Grasshopper Sparrow, and Blue-winged Warbler, as well as White-eyed Vireo. Walking up the road, we found a few more species, including bad looks at another Blue-winged. It was about a 4 1/2-5 hour walk in horrible conditions, all of us getting very wet, but netted 52-54 species (a non-singing empid might have been an Acadian). Shows just what spring will bring, in spite of the weather! We had 11 warbler species, 3 vireos, only 2 raptors (both red-tails), and only 1 vulture (a single Black). Obviously lots of misses, but really a fun trip! Rick Sussman Ashton,MD warblerick@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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================