Re: whips and screech owls
Roger Stone (rogs@erols.com)
Thu, 2 Jul 1998 18:20:11 -0400
Thanks for the tip Gemma!
Funny you should mention that! Andy and I were out at Oland road this
afternoon and got great looks at several uh...."Hornies"? ('Scuse
me...Urp!)
We started out crossing at White's Ferry and going north a couple of miles
on Rt. 15 to explore the area described in Claudia Wild's book (at least in
the old edition) as "Lucketts and Vicinity". Nice and birdy for a
mid-summer morning. Most of the regulars were there, plus Chipping, Field,
Song, and Grasshopper Sparrows, Orchard and Nose-diving Orioles, Barn, Tree
& Rough-winged Swallers, Meadowlarks, Dust-bathing Thrashers, and enough
singing Indigo Butings to really get on your nerves! <g>
We crossed back over at Point-o'-Rocks and dropped down 28 to New
Design/Nolan's Ferry Road where we went out to the canal. By then it was
1:00 and the birds were getting pretty quiet. We saw a few more birds,
particularly assorted Flycatchers along the canal. Then we headed out to
Oland Road, spotting a Kestral long the way. Pretty much all we saw at
Oland Road were the Horned Larks. But hey, that's OK! It's a life-bird
that I've been chasing since May and just missing by the hair on my
chinny......well you get the idea. We saw them up near the farm by where
the dirt field and the mowed field intersect. They were about a hundred
yards in, and kind of hard to locate, but once we got on them, they stayed
put.
At that point it was 3:00 or so and we were running out of steam. So we
swung by Frederick to refuel, got distracted, and never made it back to the
Lilipons area. (I bought a great swivel rocker in Frederick, though, that
Andy says is a yucky rust color, but HA-HA, I'm color blind so it doesn't
matter! Besides, Andy's fiancee likes the color.)
Anyway, for a languid July day we had 55 species, and if we'd made it back
out to Lilipons I'm sure we would have hit 60 or 70. So the birds are
still out there.....
Happy 4th of July and Good Birding Everyone!
Roger Stone
Germantown, MD
rogs@erols.com
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From: Gemma Radko <gradko@smtpinet.aspensys.com>
To: MDOsprey@ARI.Net
Subject: whips and screech owls
Date: Thursday, July 02, 1998 10:56 AM
Hi everyone,
While birding with Jim Green on Mt. Ephraim Rd.last evening (7/1) we heard
several whip-poor-wills calling. Time we first heard the birds was about
9:15
p.m. We heard the birds at several points halfway along the road, heading
from
Park Mills towards Stronghold. Also heard the bird's call note (?); a clear
"whip". It's good to know that these birds are still on Sugarloaf!
Are whip-poor-wills more vocal at certain times of the year? When are
"optimal"
times to hear them? The birds we heard last night started out by calling
only 1-
3 times in a row; eventually, they started to call 15+ times in a row.
We also heard Screech Owls calling (the single-noted call).
Gemma Radko
gradko@aspensys.com
P.S. Roger, get back out to Oland Road if you can - we had great looks at
Horned
Lark yesterday in the newly-cut fields on the right side, just after you
cross
85.