Spent the day yesterday searching for sparrows. Hit many of the Howard fields - some private and some county parks. The sparrows had definitely arrived. We were hung up on 9 species for the day and could not locate a vesper to our dismay. No "rarities" but great numbers of all the expected birds. 2 GRASSHOPPERS and 4 LINCOLNS were found. We had one of the highest counts of WHITE-CROWNS in years with 30-40 + birds. SAVANNAH and SONGS in the hundreds.

69 species for the day with some very nice "non-sparrow highlights." (NOT to be confused with Hart-Millers' "unidentified sparrows" which I must ask Gene for some details on).

DICKCISSEL, PURPLE FINCH, MERLIN, RED-HEADED WOODPECKER were some and a complete trip list can be accessed on the howardbirds.org website under trip reports.

Bonnie

Bonnie Ott
Howard County Field Trip Chair
Ellicott City, MD