[MDOsprey] Oxon Cove, DC (Prison Site ??) Birds

Mike Milton (mikemilton@ibm.net)
Sun, 23 May 1999 23:28:20 -0400 

        Judy Schaefer and I entered the DC side of Oxon Cove this AM,
from the access road that goes by the auto impoundment lot.   This was
further warm-up  for her two minutes of testimony before the DC Zoning
Commission Monday 5/24, in opposition to the proposed prison on this
site.

        In about 30 minutes in a very small area (as far as a clearing
marked with a ribbon "NPS Bird Survey 330') our bird list was:

            Great Blue Heron
            Green Heron
            Wood Duck M&F
            Laughing Gull
            Rock Dove (1)
                (the above all fly-overs)
            Yellow-billed Cuckoo (heard only)
            Swift
            Kingbird
            American Crow
            Carolina Chickadee
            Carolina Wren
            Catbird
            Mockingbird
            Cedar Waxwing
            Starling (only in auto lot)
            Red-Eyed Vireo (heard only)
            Yellow Warbler
            Yellowthroat
            Summer Tanager - one adult male and one 2nd -year male
            Cardinal
            Blue Grosbeak  M&F
            Indigo Bunting
            Red-Winged Blackbird
            Common Grackle
            Orchard Oriole F
            Goldfinch

                 The adult Summer Tanager sat and sang in the top of an
elm, while six Goldfinches arranged themselves in a circle just below
him, and then two male Indigo Buntings landed on either side of him.
The jewel-like spectacle equaled any I have seen in Neo- or
Paleotropics.
                I do not maintain a written personal DC list, but I
think the Summer Tanagers were DC firsts, and the Blue Grosbeaks
seconds, as we saw a male in the Arboretum on the NCAS Birdathon last
Saturday.
                None of these birds being passage migrants, they should
be around for the breeding bird census (we may or may not observe BBS
protocols) on June 19th, preceding the rally, clean-up, and picnic
sponsored by Ward 8 Coalition and the several environmental
organizations coordinated by Anna El-Eini of the New Columbia Sierra
Club.
                Corrections Corporation of America has made every effort
to depict the 42-acre site that they acquired from NPS as sort of a
brownfield. This is an impression that Judy hopes to counter in her
testimony.  It is healthy second-growth shrubby woodland, with only
minor and discrete dumping visible.

                Common Roadside Skipper (rated "U") for the Washington
area in Glassberg Butterflies Through Binoculars  was a lifer for us.