Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 14:05:46 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Danny Bystrak Subject: Western Meadowlark???? In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20030408153534.00aa1670@64.38.115.52> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed On May 12th, i stepped out on my porch and heard a very strange song from a treetop in my yard. It sang perhaps 10 times, and as i approached, it flew away, never to return. As i was listening, i determined that it had a definite "blackbird" sound to it, even joking to my wife that it was an oropendula. (are they icterids?). The song was almost lost among the warblings of our local Orchard Oriole, save for the much louder, musical quality. Anyway, as it flew over, it had a short stubby body and a pale underside, and a very short tail. Western Meadowlark was the only song i have ever heard that it sounded like, but it was a very abbreviated version if it was, consisting on 3 multisyllabic phrases. So, obviously i don't consider this a sighting worthy of serious consideration, but perhaps we should be on the listen for other suspects. We had had a long bout of SW winds preceding that day -- so who knows. danny bystrak bristol, AA Co. MD wiwr@netzero.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================