Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 17:16:07 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Paul O'Brien Subject: Upper Watts Branch Park for May 3 Comments: To: paulydia@erols.com, helen@dataprompt.com, gracefultouch@erols.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A larger than expected group of 20 assembled at the park for a scheduled Montgomery County Chapter field trip. The major attraction of this park is the east-facing woods edge which warms up before the rest of the area when the sun hits it, drawing birds out in the open to feed on the newly activated insects. Unfortunately the day was cloudy, breezy (5-10 mph from the northeast) and a cool 52 degrees. So much for the major attraction. But the park yielded 56 species of birds, some of which we were able to see with the help of guest co-leaders Michael O'Brien and Louise Zemaitis from Cape May who just happened to be in town between Wings tours. There was a mini flight of hawks including Red-shouldered, Broad-winged and Red-tailed along with Black and Turkey Vultures. We would have liked to watch the skies more, but we opted to plunge into the woods to find landbird migrants. We located 11 Warbler species, some of which we actually saw, some of which were "heard only" for many, the price of birding a mature woodland. Earlier in the morning Michael had found both Kentucky and Hooded Warblers, but we were unable to relocate them for the whole group. With warmer weather and some sun I believe we could have added to our species total. Among the possible breeders were Red-shouldered Hawk, Acadian and Great-crested Flycatchers, Eastern Phoebe, Brown Creeper, Veery, Wood Thrush, American Redstart, Ovenbird, Common Yellowthroat, Scarlet Tanager and Baltimore Oriole. Of course the usual woodland species were also in evidence. The long-distance vagrant champions were Christine and Harriet Maack from Anchorage, AK, in town for some eastern birds. I hope they and the others were happy with the outcome. The list (the numbers are probably an underestimate): 1 Great Blue Heron 1 Black Vulture 3 Turkey Vultures 4 Red-shouldered Hawks 5 Broad-winged Hawks 1 Red-tailed hawk 3 Chimney Swifts 10 Red-bellied Woodpeckers 2 Downy Woodpeckers 2 Hairy Woodpeckers 1 Northern Flicker 1 Pileated Woodpecker 1 Acadian Flycatcher 1 Eastern Phoebe 2 Crested Flycatchers 1 White-eyed Vireo 6 Red-eyed Vireos 5 Blue Jays 3 American Crows 1 Fish Crow 8 Carolina Chickadees 15 Tufted Titmice 2 White-breasted Nuthatches (feeding young in nest hole) 1 Brown Creeper 4 Carolina Wrens 2 House Wrens 1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet 4 Blue-gray Gnatcatchers 2 Veerys 3 Wood Thrushes 5 American Robins 10 Gray Catbirds 2 European Starlings 1 Tennessee Warbler 2 Nashville Warblers 1 Northern Parula 1 Chestnut-sided Warbler 3 Black-throated Blue Warblers 2 Yellow-rumped Warblers 3 Black-throated Green Warblers 1 Black-and-white Warbler 2 American Redstarts 3 Ovenbirds 1 Common Yellowthroat 2 Scarlet Tanagers 2 Eastern Towhees 1 Song Sparrow 15 White-throated Sparrows 5 Northern Cardinals 4 Rose-breasted Grosbeaks 2 Common Grackles 1 Brown-headed Cowbird 1 Orchard Oriole 1 Baltimore Oriole 15 House Finches 10 American Goldfinches Paul O'Brien Rockville, Mont. Co., MD pobrien776@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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================