[MDOsprey] Broadwing spectacle at Cylburn
Steve Sanford (tanager@bcpl.net)
Sun, 26 Sep 1999 19:57:04 -0400
This morning the regular Sunday morning walk at Cylburn Arboretum in
Baltimore was treated to an unexpected delight: 900 Broad-winged Hawks!
They came mainly in streams and kettles of 25 to 100+ birds from about
9AM to noon. At first they were quite close and appeared to be emerging
from nearby roosts. Later they would come in higher streams from the
north, then usually form kettles over Cylburn before streaming on south.
The winds were mainly from the east. It was originally very sunny. Then
it suddenly clouded over almost completely for about 1 1/2 hour starting
around 9 AM, which was also the best period for the hawks. Then it got
sunny again around 10:30AM.
In addition we had a high Bald Eagle around 9:30, 2 Kestrels, about 5
Sharp-shins, 2 Kestrels, 2 Red-tails, 6 Osprey, 1 Red-shoulder, and a
Peregrine Falcon speeding south around 11:45 after most of the birders
left.
The passerines were pretty decent too. Warblers, mostly one of each,
were: Black-throated Green, Parula, Chestnut-sided, Black-throated Blue,
Black&White, Pine, Magnolia, and maybe one or two others. (Some of us,
like me, stayed in the open watching for hawks while others went into
the woods a bit for warblers.) We also had two Red-breasted Nuthatches
in the spruces, which had a good crop of new cones. And a Pileated
Woodpecker posed on a bare snag for us in bright sunlight.
Cylburn is in north central Baltimore near Pimlico Racetrack. It's at
the top of a ridge facing east towards the Jones Falls valley. The
uncommon easterly winds this morning pushing up the east slope of this
ridge may explain why there were so many hawks. Joe Lewandowski, who has
been doing these walks almost every week in spring and fall for a number
of years, says he does not recall anything like this. Prior to this they
may have seen a kettle or two adding up to 25-50 hawks on a good day.
This was the best flight of Broadwings I've ever seen apart from Corpus
Christi a year ago this weekend. To top off this great day, I had an
immature and an adult Bald Eagle soaring over my house in Randallstown
around 4:15. I have only had one Eagle here before, and I wasn't totally
positive about that one. Also I had one Nighthawk around 5:30.
Incidentally, Pete Webb and I went looking Saturday for the Connecticut
Warbler at Cromwell Valley, without success. We had only 3 warbler
species (Parula, Chestnut-suded, and Magnolia. The highlight was a
Merlin that perched in a tree near the lot,and occasionally flew around.
Later that evening at Pete's house in Lochearn, we had another fly-over
Merlin.
Steve Sanford
Randallstown MD