Some of the best birds were pretty close to home today, with
recording of three species of 'new for the year here' birds.  These were
PINE SISKIN, Bluebird and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.  Another yard 'first'
for this year was simultaneous presence of two Brown Thrashers.  Elsewhere
in the yard there were 20+ Robins, a dozen Cedar Waxwings, one Yellow-rumped
Warbler, a Fox Sparrow, many White-throats and Juncoes, and three Towhees.
The Pine Siskin was in the company of about 20 Goldfinches.
	Around mid-day I tried again for any sign of a Barnacle Goose at
Pickering Creek, but could not locate such a bird.  However, it sure was fun
to try.  Pickering Creek has left quite a few rows of standing corn, with
fairly broad harvested areas between the groups of standing rows.  Most of
the geese of our region must have been flying around looking for fields like
this, for during the 45 minutes that I watched there were nearly always some
more groups of birds coming on in.  Eventually the flock on the ground
reached at least 16,000 and it could have been even more.  Amongst these
Canadas were one family group of Snow Geese (two adults, four immatures), a
single Blue Goose, a Canada Goose carrying lots of white feathering on the
top of the head, and a leucistic Canada Goose (all the normally dark
feathering was 'off-white' on this bird).

	Checking of county roads for special birds yielded several Horned
Larks, 10 or so Hermit Thrushes, and great numbers of Juncoes, Song
Sparrows, White-throats, Cardinals and a few Towhees.  I saw only one
Carolina Wren, and have seen none of these around my feeders recently.

Les Roslund
Talbot County
Easton, MD