Hi Folks,

Domestic responsibilities have kept Elaine and me pretty close to home for
the past several weeks, so most of our birding has been done within a couple
hundred feet of our house in Ferndale (N. AA Co.).  The month of November
started out pretty well when on 11/4 we had our first HERMIT THRUSH  of the
season, and it stayed until the following day.  Besides seeing the thrush on
11/5, we also had our only CHIPPING SPARROW of the month at our feeders that
day, and our earliest fall FOX SPARROW, which sadly only stayed for the day.
While the middle of the month brought a good influx of feeder birds, there
was nothing out of the ordinary.  That changed this past Friday (11/23) when
our first PURPLE FINCH in years, a brownie, visited our feeders, but
probably didn't stick around more than 15 minutes.  The better bird of the
day, however, came as we were walking in the front yard in the late
afternoon, and a bird I initially labeled as a Sharpie (long banded tail)
flew right over our heads with powered flight and nice pointed wings--our
first yard MERLIN, yard bird #116 (and even a county bird, at that!).
Yesterday, we had our first YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER of the month--a female
that spent the enitre day on our apple tree, checking out the hundreds of
existing wells, and excavating a few more.  A typically active RUBY-CROWNED
KINGLET shared the apple tree with the sapsucker much of the day,
periodically being shooed away by the territorial woodpecker.

We are generally lucky to have one or two raptors fly over our yard in a
week, but today (Sunday, 11/25) would turn out to be our best raptor day
ever, by far.  It began shortly after sunrise when I was walking around the
yard, heard an alarm sound (perhaps a chickadee), and a split second later
watched a SHARP-SHINNED HAWK come sailing in, landing high in one of our
Southern Red Oaks.  It stayed for many minutes, finding no prey in our yard,
unlike one Elaine saw in the back yard a couple weeks ago, sitting on the
ground with some red feathers beneath it, then flying off with one of our
male cardinals.  Later in the morning, a RED-TAILED HAWK was seen circling
and hovering over the neighborhood, working its way over our back yard
before disapearing from sight.  This bird has been around for more than a
month, unlike last year when 'tails were quite scarce but 'shoulders were
regular in our yard.  It was mid-afternoon when our next raptor came into
view, a COOPER'S HAWK making a bee-line toward our neighbors to the south.
A bit later in the back yard I heard what I thought was a waxwing, but the
high pitch was instead another alarm call, following which a Cooper's Hawk
made a pass at some feeding Mourning Doves on our patio, but flew away
without quarry.

Fairly late in the afternoon, Elaine and I took a walk to the end of the
driveway, impressed by the thousand or so grackles feeding in various yards
across the main thoroughfare.  When we returned to the yard, I noticed a
large hawk flying to the east.  It was big and I thought it was our
Red-tail, but it looked rather dark; I was looking at it edge-on, and really
couldn't see any detail.  It didn't fly like the Red-tail, either:  no bank,
cruise, circle, hover, circle, bank, cruise... It flew in a rather direct
line, turning little and allowing little more than a profile view.
Fortuitously, however, it did make a turn, and came right toward us.  The
big bird flew right over our yard, revealing heavy streaking from throat to
feet, pale undertail coverts, and delicate banding on the tail--a juvenile
NORTHERN GOSHAWK, yard bird #117, and yet another county bird.   Certainly
this had to be the grand finale for the day, but not quite.  The mass of
grackles we had seen earlier was working its way towards our yard, and we
were very interested in having these birds drop in to be counted on our
Project Feederwatch tally.  We sat and watched and waited as they perched in
our neighbor's trees.  While watching the grackles, a somewhat distant bird
went cruising eastward in the skies to the south.  I put the bins on it--it
was a PEREGRINE FALCON, first of the year (Yard year bird #100), and only
second yard record, the other being two years ago this month.  Phew!  This
was the finale to an incredible day.  We tallied 32 species from the yard
today, tying our November high.  Some grackles did, by the way, drop in for
a brief visit.

As Derek Richardson did a couple weekends ago (which I enjoyed very much),
I'll post our official weekend results of Feederwatch birds (Sat-Sun,
11/24-25; only birds in "feeder" area counted):

8+ hours of feeder-watching; low temp: 26; high: 55; birds:

Sharp-shinned Hawk--1
Cooper's Hawk--1
Mourning Dove--40 (last week we had 64)
Red-bellied Woodpecker--1 male
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker--1 female
Downy Woodpecker--2 (pair)
N. Flicker--1
Blue Jay--2
Am. Crow--1
Carolina Chickadee--3
Tufted Titmouse--2
Red-breasted Nuthatch--2 (here almost continuously since mid-September)
White-breasted Nuthatch--1
Carolina Wren--1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet--1
Song Sparrow--1
White-throated Sparrow--9
Dark-eyed Junco--11
N. Cardinal--10
Common Grackle--125
House Finch--5 (3m 2f)
Am. Goldfinch--1
House Sparrow--4 (2m 2f)

Hope you all had an enjoyable Thanksgiving.

Stan Arnold
Glen Burnie