We covered the lower Patuxent in extreme s. PG County for y'day's May 
Count. Among high-lights were:

At least 100 D-C CORMORANTS are nesting on the towers carrying the power 
line from Chalk Point across the Patuxent to Calvert Co. While I recall 
hearing something of this several years ago, the MD Breeding Bird Atlas 
has no record of it. This documents a major invasion of the species up 
this river, as along others.

A KING RAIL was heard, close at hand, on a stretch of river between 
River Airport and Milltown Landing, in an area of cat-tail and 
Pickerel-weed mostly in standing water. While well within Atlas 
"safe-dates" I hestitate to enter this encounter into the Atlas (except 
as an "O") w/o further evidence, considering the extreme rarity of the 
species in MD.

The number of Summer Tanagers increases dramatically s. of Aquasco, 
outnumbering Scarlet Tanagers by a wide margin. The gradient is very 
steep, as if the density drops sharply near the limit of its range.

There was a near-total absence of indisputably migrant passerines. This 
seems to be a consistent trend - none at Chalk Point, fair numbers at 
Jug Bay, and good numbers in the vicinity of Laurel, and so on at points 
in between. Does this gradient express the increasing urbanization from 
south to north, so that migrants are increasingly concentrated into 
smaller refugia and so more readily seen by birders? Or is there some 
other habitat factor at work?

Grassland birds have totally disappeared from the vast open fields 
managed by the public agencies, probably as result of the recent trend 
toward "no-till" agriculture which leaves only chick-weed and vetch in 
its wake, without a blade of grass. For the first time, no Grasshopper 
Sparrows, Bobolinks, or Meadowlarks were found.


-- 
Fred & Jane Fallon
Bowie MD