Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2003 14:27:46 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Beth Kantrowitz Subject: Saturday, Hyattsville, PG County MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For the first time this year I ventured into Magruder Park and the local stretch of the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia that I consider my backyard. Two turkey vultures circled as I entered the first part of the trail, the circular boardwalk around a very low swampy area. As usual, cardinals were very loudly singing and calling to each other through the trees, and I heard a few grackles gracking overhead. My first great finds weren't birds... rustling in the dead leaves led me to an 8-inch long reddish brown crayfish walking slowly through the mud and emerging skunk cabbage, and a suspicious muddy gray rock turned out to be a foot-long female snapping turtle. All I managed to spish out of the dense woody undergrowth was a female house sparrow, but I did spot a white-throated sparrow before completing the circular path. On to the higher and somewhat drier path through the woods leading to the Northwest Branch trail, where I expected woodpeckers and wasn't disappointed. At least one pair of red-bellies busily feeding and calling but not drumming or excavating, a pair of downies, and one yellow-bellied sapsucker, plus a flicker I kept hearing but never caught sight of. Red-winged blackbirds down by the stream, a singing Carolina wren, and a few tufted titmice, mourning doves, and a white-breasted nuthatch in the treetops. Through the trees, out on the football/soccer field, I could see a large flock of starlings and cowbirds. Then, suddenly, the robins invaded! I hadn't seen a big flock since the last snowstorm, and I've been seeing solitary males on people's front lawns, but there were at least a hundred of them filling the bare tree branches and flipping through the dead leaves on the trail for worms. Only one male was up on a branch singing half-heartedly. All I could see or hear now was the robins so I moved out onto the open paved trail. One ring-billed gull stood in the middle of the Northwest Branch where it passes under Route 1 heading towards Bladensburg. The usual pair of mallards sailed past and a small group of cedar waxwings passed overhead. I was scanning the edge of the woods when I saw a big white bird on a branch and wondered what a gull was doing in the trees. Then it raised it's head and I got my prize of the day, a single black-crowned night heron. I've seen them on rare occasions in flight over the park, even recording one as a write-in one February for the Great Backyared Bird Count, and I know an area further downstream where I've seen a few roosting in recent years, but this was the first time I'd encountered one just standing in a tree. The bird was very calm and kept his beautiful red eye on me but wasn't disturbed by the bikers and kids on rattling roller skates that passed on the asphalt path, and I was able to get pretty close before reluctantly moving on across Route 1. It was getting late, and the area isn't the safest place to be walking around alone, but I wanted to check a favorite spot with lots of snags and natural cavities. First I noted the Canada geese in the grassy flat area by the stream and a single merlin (I think) , some crows, and three tree swallows high overhead. Lots of red-winged blackbirds here, too. My spishing got me a very ticked off Carolina wren which looked like it was carrying nesting materials before it dropped them to give me a good scolding. I also got the attention of a passing cyclist who I may have turned into the newest member of PG Audubon after a conversation about birds, migration, and human impacts on bird populations punctuated by the perfectly-timed appearance of a beautiful male bluebird, soon joined by a female and two others that looked like males. Sorry to bore you with my Saturday afternoon suburban trek, disappointingly migrant-free, but the black-crowned night heron made up for any disappointment. Even though the trees were so bare I could see my apartment building from the swampy part of the trail, the singing cardinals, wren, and robin proved that spring is indeed approaching, however slowly. -Beth Kantrowitz Hyattsville, MD bkantrowitz@olg.com P.S. Rob, if you're reading this, I'm going to keep my own Atlas scorecard this year rather than passing on my neighborhood observations to you one at a time. Keep me in mind if you want company atlasing anywhere around here or DC :) ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================