This morning I had a few hours to get and bird an area of North Central Carroll County. Hoping that yesterday's frontal passage would bring a fresh supply of migrant's, I headed for the railroad tracks at the north end of Liberty Reservoir at Glen Falls Road. Walking west from Glen Falls, I encountered a Magnolia Warbler and then quickly after that a Black-throated Green. I got a quick glimpse of a Myrtle Warbler and heard a few more chipping in the trees. Female/immature Indigo Buntings were still working the weeds near the tracks and I had a sigle Red-breasted Nuthatch and added along the way 4 White-breasts. About 200 yards from the road I had my first Purple Finches of the fall when I ran across a flock of a half dozen female/imm. birds high in the trees on the left side of the tracks. Birding then became very slow with only a few more Indigo Buntings and a Common Yellowthroat near the tracks. 

Out over the weedy north end of the lake bed and near the Patapsco River, I observed a Sharp-shinned Hawk chasing a pair of Yellow-shafter Flickers. It would chase one then turn and chase another around some bare trees. Shortly thereafter, 4 Blue Jays flew in and took turns playing chicken with the hawk. One by one the birds would fly in to harass the Sharpie only to be chased around the trunk by the bird, each Blue Jay evading the attack by weaving through the bare branches and whipping around the trunk of the tree. As the hawk would alight on a branch, another jay would move in the harrass and be chased. After a few minutes, the frustrated hawk flew down river and renewed its chase of the flickers until all moved out of sight. 

At about 7:30, a large (perhaps 1,000-2,000 birds) mixed flock of grackles, starlings and blackbirds flew in and landed in the trees on the right side of the tracks near where there is a small bridge that crosses a stream that feeds into the lake from the north. The noise from the birds drowned out all other sounds in the area. While scanning this flock, I found a male Brewer's Blackbird perched on a branch of a walnut tree about 100 feet away. The bird was roughly Red-winged sized, definitely smaller than the grackles it was associating with, with a smaller bill, shorter squared tail and purplish sheen to the head. The upper body had a hint of green sheen to it but not nearly as strongly obvious as I'm used to seeing on birds observed in the west. Having seen hundreds of these in my days of living in Arizona and traveling throughout the west, I knew what it was the moment that I observed the bird. It sat for about a minute before flying into one of the nearby oaks where it could n
o longer be observed through the foliage.

Another couple of stops along Beaver Run produced a couple more Magnolia and Black-throated Green Warblers but little else. Surprisingly, there was barely a breeze in the trees at both locations this morning until about 8:30 when I started to notice the trees start to sway and could hear the rustle of the wind in the leaves at their tops. Talking to folks elsewhere, the winds are quite stronger out by the bay and on the eastern shore.

I left the Finksburg area and drove to my home a few miles away to make this post before I head back out again. I wanted to get the info out on the blackbird, although I doubt that the flock will still be around by the time I type this. Writing this, the shear curtains are occasionally standing out as the breeze comes in through the window. It's a gloriously beautiful early fall day in Maryland.

Good Birding,

Ed Boyd
Westminster, MD