Date: Sun, 6 Apr 2003 20:32:10 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Elise Kreiss Subject: Palm Warbler Along the Gwynns Falls MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Paul and I had a nice walk down to and along the Gwynns Falls near Leakin Park today, hoping to see some activity at an old nest in which Coopers Hawks have shown some interest. No luck, there. However; we were only a few minutes into our walk when we started having a nice run of birds including a YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER, HERMIT THRUSH, PALM WARBLER, RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET and BROWN CREEPER! Also, a RED-SHOULDERED HAWK flew overhead calling, and two GREAT BLUE HERONS flew to our vicinity and landed in trees. We considered this a very nice turnout for an short afternoon walk, and we had, as well, a number of the usual nice birds: Flickers, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Robins, Blue Jays, Goldfinch, Chickadees, Titmice, Song and White-throated Sparrows. We saw some courtship behavior in a couple of Titmice, wings fluttering madly, both making a musical, chime-like two-noted call. Later, in our own yard, we saw a single Titmouse fluttering its wings, making an extremely thin, high-pitched call; probably Stokes's "High-see-call." The Stokes write that the wing-quivering is usually done by the female Titmouse. Another book, Grubb, Tufted Titmouse, states that "Wing quivering can be seen in both members of a pair during the female's fertile period." Just as we were leaving the Windsor Hill's Conservation Trail, we saw a perched immature Cooper's Hawk, which flew off into the park. Perhaps one of the two hawks that had been at our house earlier in the day? 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================