Greetings,
 
Visited Conowingo Dam this morning from 7:30 to 10:30.  The usual  residents 
well represented with 7 Bald Eagles, 4 Osprey, 60 (likely more) Great  Blue 
Herons, about 400 Double-crested Cormorants, 250 Rock Pigeons, 2,000  
(conservative) Ring-billed Gulls and more than 20 Black Vultures.   There were several 
thousand swallows, mostly Tree and Barn but a lot of Bank  Swallows as well, 
perched on the wires and swirling like flies over the water  and land -- some 
seeming to take aim at my head.  Best finds of the  day: 4 Black Terns and about 
20 Forster's Terns (this last is, amazingly, my  first observation of the 
species in Harford County).  Lots of pewees  calling.  At the Old Grist Mill in 
Susquehanna S.P found 7 Common  Mergnasers huddled up on a small rock in mid 
river and saw a single Spotted  Sandpiper land on another.  More pewees and a 
"yellowstart" and a  Northern Parula and a juvenile male Indigo Bunting.
 
Later, at the VA Hospital grounds on Perry Point in Cecil county, birds of  
some interest: 5 Purple Martins over the water, 5 Chimney Swifts, and 4 or 5  
calling juvenile American Goldfinches begging (fuzzy heads and almost no tails  
and clumsy landings) and being fed by adults.  The only Great Black-backed  
Gulls of the day were roosting on the superstructure of the Hattem Bridge.
 
Lou
 
Louis Nielsen  
Reisterstown, MD