Folks

Gwen and I did some work for the MD DNR yesterday near Purse's Park, off Rt. 224 in Charles County.  I was actually birding while she was assessing the health and potential of a track of land as old growth forest.  She calls this work.  

We walked over a mile down an old logging road toward the site.  Along the way we had several flocks of birds.  One included a Least Flycatcher (#211 for the county big year) in the top of a pine tree along the old road leading to the site.  The bird was in a mixed flock of Pine and Northern Parula Warblers, Chickadees, Titmouse, White-breasted Nuthatch, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, and others.  At first I saw the underside of a small bird rapidly flicking its tail.  I could also see a couple wing bars and quickly realized it was an empidonax flycatcher.  The belly and undertail coverts were white.  The triangle shaped bill with a complete orange lower mandible were striking.  The throat was off white, not yellow.  This bird appeared chunky because its large head and short primary projection.  The bird moved quickly from spot to spot, and I could not see the upperside well.  Unfortunately I was not able to get Gwen to see the bird (a county bird for her) well enough before it departed.   The bird did not vocalize at all.  Tail flicking in empids is not diagnostic, but using all the other field marks available to me, and considering all the reasonable possibilities in the east, I conclude this bird to be a Least Flycatcher.  

Other birds of note along the way were a calling Summer Tanager, several Yellow-billed Cuckoos, and a responsive Eastern Screech Owl.  

As a footnote, the Least Flycatcher is #211 for the year because I forgot to include Magnolia Warbler first identified on May 1 in my spreadsheet.  I think I need a proofreader.  This also is one species away from the county annual record of 212 I set in 1996.  I fully expected to have set a new record long before now.  

The big year effort is a fund raising effort for the Maryland Breeding Bird Atlas.  If you want to support me in this effort it is still not to late to sign up.  I intend to donate one dollar per species identified.  

This morning my deck sit produced three Baltimore Orioles (yard year bird #115).  One adult male, and two young birds.  

Need more warblers and shorebirds.  Good migration.

George