A few birds of note this weekend in and about MC. The old adage, when it
rains it pours comes to mind with the first. Bobolink was one of the
auspicious absences on my life list, that is until I saw a singing flock
of 30+ along the meadow trail above the model sail boat pond at the
Soccerplex Friday evening. Heard the song long before I started spotting
birds, but once we got close enough, they were all over the place.

 

Saw a strange warbler along the C&O just east of Pennyfield lock on
Sunday. The bird was foraging in the low brush along the river side of
the towpath, and then flew down to the weeds along the down-slope from
the path to the canal, where I got a few good looks at it. My first
thought was a blackburnian, which I have seen a few times before. Dark
back and wings with an almost black head, gold/orange breast with white
underparts. Because it was below us in the weeds, I was able to look
down on the bird from above, and even watched as it flew a few feet
along the bank from this perspective. This is when I noticed the tail
was the same gold/orange as the breast from above, much like a redstart,
but without the center black stripe. As I hadn't seen a blackburnian
from this vantage before, I didn't think much about it until I returned
to the car and a field guide, and the pictures didn't match up with
anything. Unfortunately, it had started to rain, and the bird could not
be relocated.

 

Any thoughts would be welcome.

 

Raymond E. Wickline

Supervisor

Criminal Intelligence and Tactical Crime Analysis Unit

Metropolitan Police Department

300 Indiana Ave NW

Room 5063

Washington, DC 20001

 

Direct: 202.727.8594

Office: 202.727.4289

Pager : 202.996.5207