Ben Jesup agreed to make a rare foray into Maryland to join me in a trip to Hughes Hollow and Sycamore Landing, and also brought along Jim Matthews.  They were rewarded for their journey across the river with some good birds.

The day started off auspiciously along River Road bit east of Hughes Hollow, as the car was buzzed by 2 COMMON NIGHTHAWKS, giving us great looks (I later had two more at the impoundments).

The highlight at the impoundments was probably the bitterns--a pair of each.  We saw 2 flying AMERICAN BITTERNS circling to give us a nice long look (one doing what appeared to be a bit of a display flight).  A LEAST BITTERN was calling constantly all morning in the main western/righthand impoundment, and we briefly saw another one flying low. GREEN HERONS were also present in force--10 is a very conservative estimate.

We also had a brief but close appearance by the COMMON MOORHEN, and an AMERICAN COOT.  We heard 3 fairly distant calling BARRED OWLS.  Present in their usual haunts around the impoundments were WARBLING VIREOS and plenty of ORCHARD and BALTIMORE ORIOLES.

Between Sycamore Landing and Hughes Hollow, we had 15 warbler species.  Highlights were 4 singing CERULEAN WARBLERS and a singing WILSON'S WARBLER along the towpath east of Sycamore Landing.  Others of note were 2 BLACKBURNIANS and 8 NORTHERN WATERTHRUSHES (in both locations), 2 CANADAS (along Sycamore Landing Rd.), and a YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT (in the fields).

Others of note included numerous WHITE-EYED VIREOS and YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOOS.  A number of thrushes were foraging on the towpath, two of which looked like probable Gray-cheeked, but we (OK, I) foolishly opted to leave Ben's scope behind and we weren't able to get adequate looks.  We did have SWAINSON'S and WOOD THRUSHES.

We saw a fairly distant soaring cormorant over the fields that was interesting, but were unable to convince ourselves it was an Anhinga--just an immature Double-crested catching a thermal.

Jason Waanders
NW DC
jwaandersATstarpower.net