Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2004 21:14:38 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Stephen Sanford Subject: North Point & Back River Mar 27 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Here's a summary of our trip to North Point State Park (NP) and Back River (BR), and the Sewage Plant nature trail (BRI) Saturday Mar 27. Highlights: 4 tooting B-w Teal at NP, flock of Rusty Blackbirds at NP, Fox & Field Sparrows. Singing Pine Warbler at BRI. Missed Little Gull at BR. (Missed again on Mar 28 too.) Generally pleasant day of early spring birding with lots of activity. Birders: Cathy Carroll, Nancy & Elliot Kirschbaum, Paul Noell, Steve Sanford, Pete Webb. Fairly rainy 1st half-hour at North Point, then dry and mostly cloudy with temps in the 60's. Visibility on Bay very limited. List with locations & numbers noted in some cases (using abbreviations above): Double-crested Cormorant Great Blue Heron Turkey Vulture - 1 BR Wood Duck (NP?) and BRI (1 m-f pair) Mallard *Blue-winged Teal - 4 tooting then flying at NP Lesser Scaup ? on Bay Bufflehead ? On Bay Osprey - ~4 one carrying nesting mat'l at NP *Cooper's Hawk - BRI agitated as though nesting <-- Elliot take note for Atlas Red-tailed Hawk - 1 BRI Killdeer Bonaparte's Gull ~200 at BR, no Little Gull BUT John Landers saw 1 in AM Ring-billed Gull Herring Gull Great Black-backed Gull Rock Dove Mourning Dove Red-bellied Woodpecker Downy Woodpecker Hairy Woodpecker Northern Flicker Blue Jay American Crow Fish Crow Tree Swallow Carolina Chickadee Tufted Titmouse (almost none!) White-breasted Nuthatch Carolina Wren Winter Wren - 1 at BRI, well-seen by all and heard singing mainly by Pete Brown Creeper - ~4 at BRI Golden-crowned Kinglet - 1 BRI Hermit Thrush - NP (sang!), BRI American Robin - (scads at BRI) Northern Mockingbird European Starling Yellow-rumped Warbler - BRI *Pine Warbler- 1 BRI singing and well-seen E Towhee Chipping Sparrow Field Sparrow - NP, BRI Fox Sparrow - NP, BRI Song Sparrow Swamp Sparrow White-throated Sparrow Dark-eyed Junco Northern Cardinal Red-winged Blackbird *Rusty Blackbird - NP, ~25 Common Grackle Brown-headed Cowbird Purple Finch - 1 flying over at NP detected by Pete by "pink" notes American Goldfinch House Finch House Sparrow 56 species Where: --North Point 8:30-11:00, especially the wetland area; --[Uncle Eddies Restaurant for lunch in Essex (rather nice local color, "Sweetie" apparently replaces "Hon" in Essex)]; --Diamond Point on Back River (BR), 1-3PM; --Back River Sewage Plant inside nature trail (BRI) , 3-4:30 (w/o Nancy & Elliot). Steve Sanford Baltimore Co ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================