Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2002 17:13:25 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Rick Sussman Subject: Meadowside Nature Center, Saturday AM Comments: To: voice@capaccess.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, For lack of any place better, I went over to Meadowside Nature Center in Rockville this morning. I knew as soon as I raised my bins that it would be a productive morning, as my first bird was an immature Chestnut-sided Warbler. This was at the area around the picnic tables at the top of the ridge overlooking the "meadow". A lot of action from a small group of birds (Red-eyed Vireos, A. Redstart, titmice and chickadees), feeding in some trees with lots of bittersweet vine. Shortly, my eyes caught a flycatcher at the top of a tree, perched in dead branches. Could it be an Olive-sided? Well, the light here was terrible, with the sun coming up behind the bird, and no place to get a better view. The bird flew out and audibly snapped up a flying insect, then went back to the perch. From its silhouette, I could see a rather large bill and, large, peaked head shape, but not much else. Finally, I was able to see the bird against a dark background of leaves behind it, and indeed it was an OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER. But no, wait. What's that on the adjacent branch? Why, another Olive-sided Flycatcher! 2 in one binocular field!! They chased each other around for a while, alternately landing and chasing each other and insects. I phoned my friend Mike from my cell and he rushed on over (actually he was just getting in his car to come over anyway, when he went back in to grab the phone). The birds remained for about 10 minutes after he arrived, putting on quite a show, then disappeared down the hill and into the park. Also in the area was a single Eastern Kingbird, N. Parula, and both Carolina and House Wrens. A walk around the park, taking the rest of the morning didn't turn up anything quite as exciting, but we found Common Yellowthroat, and 2 Ovenbirds, a good number of young empids, E. Wood-pewee and E. Phoebe, a hummingbird making good use of a field of thistle flowers, Red-shouldered Hawk, local woodpeckers, gnatcatchers, Chimney Swifts soaring with Black Vultures and a few Turkey Vultures, and Great Blue and Green Herons. Things should be on the move tomorrow if the winds push the front through, and we don't get rained out. 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================