Hi Folks,

With Friday being the last day of school for students in Howard Co., I began 
the long teacher recovery process by spending the weekend with Elaine at one 
of our favorite places--Patuxent River NAS in St. Mary's Co.  A lot of 
relaxing and a fair amount of birding were in order.  We had several birds 
and a few numbers that are going to get flagged in our ebird reports, so 
I'll go ahead and report on the interesting finds from the weekend.

We headed south on Friday evening, hoping to find Black-crowned Night Heron 
and Chucks in Calvert Co.  We stopped at several locations, but whiffed 
totally.  With the cards not in our favor, we opted out of looking for 
nightjars in St. Mary's and called it a night.

On Sat., 14 June we started the day at Point Lookout State Park.  Only bird 
of note was a breeding plumaged HORNED GREBE at the boat lauch, probably the 
same bird we saw there in April during our Smith Island trip.  Scotland 
Beach hosted 35 BROWN PELICANs out on the pound nets.

Cornfield Harbor Ln. had none of the rails or sparrows we were hoping for, 
and we had to settle for a few singing MARSH WRENs as our best finds.

The bird tempo picked up a bit as we headed back north, and toured the 
length of  St. Jerome's Neck Rd.  Here we came across 4 GRASSHOPPER 
SPARROWs, 2 E. MEADOWLARKs, and 9 CATTLE EGRETs.  Also, in the yard of one 
of the houses near the end of the road was a singing HOUSE WREN, only the 
second or third I've found in this county.

Following an extensive siesta, Elaine and I headed back out in the very late 
afternoon, poking around the Navy Base, and then heading out in the evening 
to Bushwood to see if we could luck into the Sandhill Crane reported there. 
Even though Tyler Bell had no luck the evening before, we thought that maybe 
the rains this evening might bring it back.  Nope.  We went through some 
monstrously heavy downpours to get there (it rained over 2.5 inches at the 
Navy Base last night).  No crane.  Our consolation was a roadside puddle 
with a Killdeer and two peeps that were almost certainly SEMIPALMATED 
SANDPIPERs, but I wasn't about to get my scope out in the rain.  On the way 
back to the base we had planned to look for nightjars at the airport near 
Hollywood, but it was pouring when we got to the area, so I decided to get 
up early the next morning and try for them.  By the way, on our way out to 
Bushwood I saw a ROCK PIGEON flying over a farm field along Rt 5, about 3-4 
miles south of Clements.  This may be only the second pigeon I've seen in 
this county.

Around 4 a.m. this morning, I headed out solo, to try for nightjars at the 
Hollywood airport.  After about 20 minutes, I was rewarded with a vocal 
WHIP-POOR-WILL.  I then drove around to the back of the airport, along 
Lawrence (Hadley?) Rd., and spent some time next to the airport fence. 
Besides the whip, a N. BOBWHITE made numerous vocalizations (is this bird 
wild???), but I had no luck in finding a chuck.  The biggest surprise came 
when I heard a peent-type vocalization, and I thought that perhaps a 
nighthawk was flying up in the pre-dawn gloom somewhere.  But the sound 
continued, eminating from the base of the fence, and I realized I was 
listening to an AM. WOODCOCK.  I thought it unusual that Bill Hubick found a 
woodcock here in May, but I was totally shocked to hear this bird vocalizing 
in mid-June.  A noisy CHAT, towhee, and Song Sparrow rounded out the 
pre-dawn chorus.

The remainder of the morning was spent doing a 3+ hour count of birds at 
Patuxent River NAS.  Nothing exceptional, but this was our first stay here 
this time of year, and it was nice to see what birds are nesting on the 
base.  We found several species of warbler, and discovered that Baltimore 
Orioles actually do exist in St. Mary's Co. outside of migration.  I'll sign 
off now, and include the ebird list from PRNAS as a postscript.

Stan Arnold
Ferndale (AA Co.)





eBird Report - Patuxent River Naval Air Station , 6/15/08


>
>
> Location:     Patuxent River Naval Air Station
> Observation date:     6/15/08; 6:15 - 9:25 a.m.
> Notes:     Winds calm; very birdy but no flying raptors other than Ospreys 
> and one Turkey Vulture.
> Number of species:     71
>
> Canada Goose     8
> Mute Swan     8 (2 adults and 6 signets)
> Mallard     4
> Double-crested Cormorant     5
> Great Blue Heron     10
> Great Egret     1
> Green Heron     1
> Turkey Vulture     1
> Osprey     34
> Bald Eagle     1
> Red-shouldered Hawk     1
> Red-tailed Hawk (Eastern)     1
> Killdeer     2
> Laughing Gull     24
> Herring Gull     8
> Great Black-backed Gull     7
> Mourning Dove     21
> Barred Owl     1
> Chimney Swift     3
> Belted Kingfisher     1
> Red-bellied Woodpecker     5
> Downy Woodpecker     4
> Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted)     2
> Eastern Wood-Pewee     4
> Acadian Flycatcher     4
> Great Crested Flycatcher     3
> Eastern Kingbird     2
> White-eyed Vireo     1
> Red-eyed Vireo     8
> Blue Jay     10
> American Crow     45
> Fish Crow     2
> Northern Rough-winged Swallow     1
> Barn Swallow     11
> Carolina Chickadee     3
> Tufted Titmouse     6
> Carolina Wren     17
> Blue-gray Gnatcatcher     1
> Eastern Bluebird     1
> Wood Thrush     1
> American Robin     33
> Gray Catbird     13
> Northern Mockingbird     16
> Brown Thrasher     20
> European Starling     295
> Cedar Waxwing     19
> Yellow Warbler     2
> Pine Warbler     6
> Prairie Warbler     4
> Ovenbird     1
> Kentucky Warbler     2
> Common Yellowthroat     4
> Hooded Warbler     1
> Yellow-breasted Chat     7
> Summer Tanager     2
> Eastern Towhee     9
> Chipping Sparrow     4
> Field Sparrow     3
> Grasshopper Sparrow     9
> Song Sparrow     13
> Northern Cardinal     29
> Blue Grosbeak     2
> Indigo Bunting     23
> Red-winged Blackbird     7
> Eastern Meadowlark     2
> Common Grackle (Purple)     37
> Brown-headed Cowbird     5
> Orchard Oriole     2
> Baltimore Oriole     2
> American Goldfinch     11
> House Sparrow     8
>
> This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)
>