Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 13:07:11 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Rick Sussman Subject: Layhill Park MOS trip Sunday, Oct. 5 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, Just a note to inform that I still have a few spaces left for tomorrow's Layhill Park trip. Call to reserve a space, as I probably won't be checking my e-mail again before then. Home is 301-774-1185 or cell 301-502-0018. Waterproof footwear required! Now let me tell you what I had there this morning, while out hacking the south trails with a machete, in the rain and cold (and I almost didn't take my binoculars). 48 species total. The south side was active fairly early, with a nicely plumed adult male Rose-breasted Grosbeak eating a rather large green caterpillar, Magnolia, Tennessee, Nashville, Blackpoll, Black-throated Green and Blue Warblers, Northern Parula, American Redstart, Least Flycatcher, a single flyover Wood Duck, and a late Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. Lots of Ruby-crowned Kinglets also about. A calling E. Wood-pewee. A glimpse of what I think was a female Blue Grosbeak ducking under cover and not seen again (will look tomorrow). Walking back towards the van near the south parking lot, my first White-throated Sparrow of the season, at least 2, maybe 3 E. Phoebes. Lots of towhees are now in and a few Indigo Buntings as well. A single White-eyed Vireo in the shrubs there bordering the soccer field. From here I drove to the north fields, where I sat in the van for maybe 30 minutes defrosting my fingers and drying my wet gloves and hat. Right above the bridge crossing the streamlet near the north field was a very beautiful Bay-breasted Warbler, and another B-T Green with a flock of chickadees and titmice. The north trails are hard to manuever as there are quite a few downed trees, but I managed to find some good birds along here too, including a late male Hooded Warbler and a very pretty LINCOLN'S SPARROW which stood and watched as I spished. Common Yellowthroats were present, as was a first-winter Chestnut-sided Warbler. A Brown Thrasher was perched in a tree with a N. Flicker, and I had nice close views of 3 Pileated Woodpeckers, along with Downy and Red-bellied. Heading back along the edge of the soccer field I found Song and Chipping Sparrows, lots and lots of catbirds and a Mockingbird, but oddly no Palm Warbler. Still a 12 warbler morning though and some other nice finds as well. hope some of these stay till tomorrows trip! Rick Sussman Ashton,MD warblerick@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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================