Date: Fri, 9 May 2003 13:52:40 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: Rock Creek DC today, 5/9 Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hi all -- Not such a overwhelming day migrant-wise as yesterday, the cloudy skies kept activity down at the ridge (plus making it harder to find birds in the trees.) Also, my impression is that there were fewer migrants around, although numbers were still impressive. One happy note, definitely fewer Yellow-rumps. Lots and lots of Black-throated Blues pushing through, also Yellowthroats. We didn't get to the area around the nature center, so some birds may have been missed. Still, we managed to tally 19 warbler species (plus one seen by others) and there were some other good sightings before the rain (again!) arrived. Warblers: Black-and-White (12), Blackburnian (1), Black-throated Blue (25-30), Black-throated Green (6), Blackpoll (15), "Brewsters" (1, more on this below), Canada (2), Cape May (1), Chestnut-sided (5), Kentucky (1, maintenance yard), Magnolia (5), Myrtle (~100), Ovenbird (8), Parula (16), Palm (1, western), Redstart (10), Wilson's (2), Wormeating (1), Yellow (2), Common Yellowthroat (20). Seen by others: Bay-breasted. Other species of interest: Baltimore Oriole (2), Scarlet Tanager (6), Eastern Kingbird (6), Great Crested Flycatcher (2), Eastern Wood-pewee (1), Ruby-crowned Kinglet (1), Red-eyed Vireo (~25), White-eyed Vireo (1), Yellow-billed Cuckoo (8-9), Catharus thrush sp. 3 (in flight), Swamp Sparrow (1). Seen by Paul Pisano: two Black-billed Cuckoos together(!), Military Field. About the Brewster's. Several folks had been hearing a song which had characteristics of Blue-winged (a two-parted loud BUZZ-beez), but in pitch and cadence like Golden-winged. Occasionally, it was given as a three-part song. The bird remained stubbornly out of view, singing erratically. Finally 3-4 of us got brief (dark) views of it over our heads, and the various views and seen field marks indicated a hybrid, Brewster's. The bird was pale yellowish underneath and lacked a black bib. Wish we could have seen it better, however. Gail Mackiernan and Barry Cooper Silver Spring, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================