Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 17:55:39 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Stan Arnold Subject: Ten days of atlasing Comments: cc: charles.Kucera@honeywell-tsi.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Folks, Too busy birding to write anything. No exceptional finds, but some nice birds over the last ten days. Highlights: LEAST TERN, BARRED OWL, BLUE GROSBEAK, RUSTY BLACKBIRD, HERMIT THRUSH, WILSON'S WARBLER, BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON, LINCOLN'S SPARROW, AMERICAN WOODCOCK, PINE WARBLER, SAVANNAH SPARROW, and a nonbird: BOBCAT. LEAST TERN was actually not in my block, but at the big Halethorpe pond in the next block over (south Baltimore Co.). Brian Sykes showed me a photo he took of one there on 2 May, and said that there was a pair of them there as late as Wednesday, 15 May. Back on Wed., 8 May, Charlie Kucera and I enjoyed the spectacle at UMBC when a pair of BARRED OWLs flew in and perched in separate trees about 50 feet apart, both in plain sight. We watched 10-15 minutes as the presumed male leaned forward, as if to study us, and eventually uttered a few Hooooaaaaahs, but never gave us the full "who cooks for you." Charlie got some photos. A more interesting sighting that evening, though, occured as we were walking through some tall grass, and a cat jumped out, and bounded across a road to a wooded area. This short-tailed cat was very muscular and very fast; it initially lept like a gazelle, then ran faster than I would expect any cat to run. I said to Charlie "that is no domestic cat." UMBC sounds like an unusual place for one, but I don't know what else it could have been other than BOBCAT. The following morning, 5/9, UMBC gave me my first BLUE GROSBEAK of the season. On Friday, 5/10, the Halethorpe ponds in AA County were host to many shorebirds including GREATER YELLOWLEGS (1), LESSER YELLOWLEGS (2), SOLITARY SANDPIPER (14), SPOTTED SANDPIPER (7), and LEAST SANDPIPER (5). YELLOW-THROATED WARBLER was singing on both sides of the pond, one or possibly two different birds. Also, a lingering RUSTY BLACKBIRD was on the mud near the shorebirds. On Saturday, 5/11, Joan DeCarli and I did the May Count along the Patapsco River, entirely in Howard Co. After walking the Cascade Trail, I ended up walking (and sometimes crawling through underbrush) the entire length of the river from above the dam at Orange Grove to the Anne Arundel Co. line. I have never gotten more than 20 species of warbler in a day before, but the fallout this day was phenomenal, and we finished the day with 25 species of warbler, and a species total of 93. Warbler highlights were WILSON'S and two CANADAs, well seen, along with singing BLACKBURNIAN (1), YELLOW-THROATED (1), CERUEAN (2), and PROTHONOTARY (2). The most abundant warblers of the day were Black-throated Blue (31), Blackpoll (23), and Ovenbird (15). Also tallied were my personal high of SWAINSON'S THRUSH (10), and 41 WOOD DUCKs, mostly young in broods of 13, 9, 7, and 3. A HERMIT THRUSH certainly must have been my last for the season. The Halethorpe ponds in AA Co. hosted an adult pair and juvenile BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON on Mon., 5/13, along with an adult and a juvenile BALD EAGLE. The following day, while walking the Baltimore Co. side of the Patapsco River, the PROTHONOTARY WARBLER I had heard behind the Elkridge Inn during the May Count, was perched in plain sight on the Howard Co. side of the river, singing his heart out. On the Baltimore side of the river was my first YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT of the year, and my fourth LINCOLN'S SPARROW in two weeks. There has been an incredible invasion of these birds this spring. Ned Brinkley, writing to the Virginia listserve, commented that he might see one of these birds during an entire spring at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, but a couple weeks ago he had three at one time. On Wed., 5/15, while doing an early a.m. hike along the power lines at the northern edge of Patapsco Valley State Park, in southwest Baltimore Co., I descended into the woods at one point, and flushed an AMERICAN WOODCOCK, my first since the safe dates were in effect. A bit later at Foxhall Farms, a pair of SAVANNAH SPARROWs was a thrill for me, though safe dates are still several weeks away. By Thursday, 5/16, the composition of shorebirds at the Halethorpe ponds in AA Co. had changed, and Solitaries had been replaced by Leasts. The tally: LESSER YELLOWLEGS (2), SOLITARY SANDPIPER (1), SPOTTED SANDPIPER (7), and LEAST SANDPIPER (12). I thought GREAT EGRET was a nice find, being within four days of the early safe date. At 0-dark-early this morning, I set out to look for Pine Warbler in my block. During the May Count, I noticed quite a few pine trees (scarce in my block!) along the far perimeter of an abandoned drive-in theater in Elkridge. I walked the perimter several times this morning, and before leaving was thrilled to hear a singing PINE WARBLER in a pine stand not far from US Route 1. This is probably 1/4 mile from where Bonnie Ott had found one during the May Count. A new atlas tick. Breeding bird confirmations for the time period included two active BALTIMORE ORIOLE nests, one at UMBC, and the other at the Halethorpe ponds. Both were hit awfully hard by the week of excessive wind, and both may have been damaged to the point of being abandoned. HOUSE WREN eggs are now in two nestboxes at UMBC, and young EUROPEAN STARLINGs could be heard in a nest hole about 20 feet up in a tree in the woodland there, as the parents flew in and out. Two DOWNY WOODPECKERs were alternating duties in a nest hole at the Halethorpe Ponds, and a KILLDEER did a distraction display to draw me away from her nest in Elkridge this a.m., but I didn't find the nest in the gravelly area. This is as much fun birding as I think I've ever had. I have found the atlas project to be totally engrossing. Stan Arnold Glen Burnie blackrail@earthlink.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================