[MDOsprey] Harford birds
rick (rblom@blazie.com)
Fri, 1 Oct 1999 10:02:39 -0500
There must have been a decent flight of hawks at Elk Neck yesterday
because in an hour at the parking lot at Swan Harbor, (near Havre de
Grace), I had 24 Sharpies, 4 Coops, 16 Ospreys, 4 Broad-wings, 2 Northern
Harriers, 1 Merlin, 11 Am Kestrels, 4 red-tails (locals?), a billion
Monarch butterflies, a half-a-billion swallows (mostly tree, up high and
bombing through), and almost 1500 Blue Jays. The woods turned up a single
A, redstart and a Brown Creeper in a flock of chickadees and titmice. The
tide at Havre de Grace was fairly high when I got there and except for the
standard several hundred Forster's Terns, and one Common, the only bird of
note was a Black-bellied Plover. The others may ahve been deterred by the 9
Bald Eagles sitting on what remained of the flat.
The Am. Coot count is up to 6: The first arrived on Tuesday, as did
5 Green-winged Teal and a single female Pintail. On Thursday Bryan Blazie
had a Blue Goose with a recently arrived flock of Canadas in Forest Hill at
the airport pond. Tuesday night was also a HUGE flight night for Canada
Geese, and I heard them every time I woke during the night. They have now
returned to many of the traditional gathering spots in the county, but a
check of eight flocks yesterday turned up nothing different.
Bryan Blazie and I birded his parent's farm in the northern part of
the county on Wednesday morning for an hour and had 2 Magnolia Warblers, 2
Black-throated greens, 5 Common Yellowthroats, 25+ Gray Catbirds, a
Cooper's Hawk, and 2 Ruby-crowned Kinglets, my first of the year.
Frustrating was a probable female Purple Finch, seen briefly and backlit
and silent. Would have been a year bird.
Rick
"This is a free country. Folks have the right to send me letters, and I
have the right not to read them."
-- William Faulkner
Rick Blom
rblom@blazie.com
4318 Cowan Place
Belcamp, Maryland 21017
(410)575-6086