Hi Folks,

Having a lot of work-related activities to handle, and also feeling a bit
under the weather, I stayed pretty close to home this weekend, but it was
nice to finally catch some long-awaited migration activity in our Ferndale
(AA Co.) yard.  Before this past Thursday, the last new year birds we had
were a flyover Kestrel and circling Osprey more than three weeks earlier, on
27 March.  It had been an awfully long spell without new birds until
finally, on Thursday 19 April, my most-wanted new yard bird appeared--a
flyover CASPIAN TERN (#112 for our suburban acre--which has no nearby water,
marsh or woods--just houses).  Friday, 4/20 brought our first Barn Swallow
of the year, followed on Saturday by a high-flying BROAD-WINGED HAWK and a
Chimney Swift.  This morning (Sun., 4/22) is when we had our big fallout,
starting with 7 flyover COMMON LOONs, then adding this year's first
BLUE-HEADED VIREO, BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER, TREE SWALLOW, RUBY-CROWNED
KINGLET, and RUBY-THROATED HUMMER, the latter being a male who visited both
feeders briefly before zipping off, not to return.  There were 33 species
tallied in (or over) the yard today, the second highest April species count
for the property.

Chipping Sparrows continue to dwindle in number.  Elaine tallied a high
count of 42 last Monday, but only 6 were seen today.  The warm weather has
really moved the juncos out, as well; there was only one seen in our yard
today.

Because of the lack of nearby habitat, Elaine and I have been working
steadily to create habitat in our yard.  Our latest project has been to
plant 250 pine trees around the periphery of our acre.  While privacy and
noise abatement are two reasons for the plantings, creating habitat for
critters was the primary consideration.  We also planted over a dozen
Winterberry plants.  We continue to search for and plant offerings for
hummingbirds, with Blue Salvia, Pineapple Sage, and Red Columbine being our
latest acquisitions.  I heard that Red Buckeye is a good tree for hummers,
and I'd like to get one, but haven't seen them available (even at Behnke's).
We'll continue to look.  Bit by bit, we are replacing an abundance of lawn
with some much more useful vegetation.

Good (yard) birding,

Stan Arnold
Glen Burnie