SEDGE WREN AND HENSLOWS SP. REPLY

Rick Blom (rblom@blazie.com)
Fri, 27 Mar 1998 17:24:21 -0500 

        Greg's request for info on the status of Sedge Wren and Henslow's
Sparrow at Elliot Island Road has led to some discussion of the two and
where they might be found. If I were doing a big year, and was not confined
to Maryland (as Greg clearly is not), I would certainly go somewhere else.
        Sedge Wren and Henslow's Sparrow are two of the most critically
endangered breeding species in Maryland, although they are not listed as so
by the state because they are grassland birds.
        Although uncoomon but widespread in marshes on the lower Eastern
Shore into the 1970s, there is currently no known, reliable, breeding
location for Sedge Wren in Maryland. A few are found most years, but during
the five years of intensive field work of the Atlas project there were no
confirmed breeding records. Virtually every report was of a one-day wonder.
There are a few every winter in the marshes on the back side of Assateague
Island and the marshes on the bay side of southern Worcester County.
        Henslow's Sparrow is nearly as bad. Once uncommon but found at
scattered locations throughout the state, it is now a rare and sporadic
breeder at a few sites, mostly in Western Maryland. Summer birds have been
found in this decade in Carroll County, Garrett County, and Allegany
County, and within a hundred feet of the Maryland line at Fair Hill in
Cecil County. They are unpredictable at sites like Finzel Swamp in Garrett
and the best hope is to spend a few days checking abandoned strip mines in
Garrett. Most years one or two reports come in during the summer, but I do
not know of any reliable sites.
        Both should be considered red letter summer birds in Maryland and
any that are found should be reported to the season report editors for
Audubon Field notes and for Maryland Birdlife. And anyone who finds either
in Harford County had better call me under the birding equivalent of the
penalty of death.

Rick

"A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for
other people."
Thomas Mann


Rick Blom
rblom@blazie.com
Bel Air, Maryland