I spent a couple of hours at the Blue Mash Nature Trail this morning. I had nice looks at a Lincoln's Sparrow just past where the pond is (the only one with water in it at present). I also had a RB Nuthatch in with a chickadee flock. I have been out of the country or busy a lot recently so this was the first one I've seen of this Fall's influx.
The pond had about 15 Green-winged Teal which I managed to flush, unfortunately, and a slightly smaller number of Mallard. A juvenile Sharp-shinned Hawk was harrassed a number of times by a group of Blue Jays. That and several Red-tailed Hawk were the total of the raptors (except the vultures, if you count them in that category).
Sparrow diversity was not as good as I had thought it might be - Song, Swamp, quite a few Field, a few White-throated, some obliging Towhee, a single Savannah and the aforementioned Lincoln's. Warblers were just Magnolia and Yellow-rumped. But it was windy and quite a few small birds got away un-ID'd as they flushed; it proved very hard to track them down with the leaves blowing around so much.
Good birding
Clive Harris
Cabin John, MD |