Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 18:58:58 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Rick Sussman Subject: Re: Atlasing for the week Comments: To: voice@capaccess.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A friend and I stopped by Hughes Hollow (Montgomery County) this morning, and after a short walk out to the second impoundment on the right, found a juvenile LEAST BITTERN standing right along the edge of the water on some plants there. It was totally unafraid of us as we watched it from perhaps 20 feet. It stared at us, but craned its neck way out as a Red-winged Blackbird flew over and screeched. After a bit, it relaxed again and stared at us with its bill pointed skyward (giving us that bazaar look that only a bittern can give). Again a blackbird flew over, skwawking, and scared the bittern and away it flew, flopping into the waterplants with its wings spread wide, like any juvenile just out of the nest and unsure of what to do with the wings once it lands. The bird was in immaculate, radiant plumage, with wisps of natal down still poking out through its new feathers along its sides and neck. The time was between 9 and 9:30 A.M. Saturday, June 29. Other birds of interest; Prothonotary Warbler, male seen singing, Willow Flycatcher, singing from a snag close by the bittern, pairs of Great-crested Flycatchers, and Acadian Flycatcher singing. 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================