Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 14:59:57 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Elise Kreiss Subject: Close Encounters with Fledglings Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Tuesday, arms crossed against the cold, I followed the sound of begging down a path in the woods behind my Rockville office. I saw a fledgling Carolina Wren fluttering in the greenery, heard the mild scolding of an adult bird, and got the impression of other movement around. A small figure rose up out of some further greenery, fluttered towards me, and, astonishingly, landed clinging to the side of my bare forearm. I got a nice eye-to-eye look at the fragile youngster. Yesterday evening my husband and I followed begging noises across the street to some fledgling Cardinals. Little brown-grey birds with little fuzzy conical crests. One of them was perched on a rock. It rose up, fluttered over to a smooth narrow tree trunk, and appeared to slide down it right out of sight. We troubled the male adult, who landed on the ground and made noises that sounded like spitting. Elise Kreiss Baltimore ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================