Hello all.

Hit two of my usual northern Anne Arundel County haunts along with Fort Armistead Park, which is just inside Baltimore. Armistead provides an excellent location for scoping Fort Carroll, the areas island breeding home for species such as Herring Gull, Double-crested Cormorant, Glossy Ibis and several wader species.  

This location is well worth checking out, but use please use caution when doing so. 

I also wanted to mention that the Least Terns of Brandon Woods have had another successful year and appear to have moved on for the fall.  We'll see them again in May!

Fort Armistead:
Highlights:

Mallard: 7
Double-crested Cormorant: 120+ On and around Ft. Carroll
Great Blue Heron: 1
Great Egret: 3  On the island
Little Blue Heron: 2 Adult, on the island
Cattle Egret: 3  Flying south overhead
Glossy Ibis: 1  Flying from island south 
Osprey: 2
Spotted Sandpiper: 2  Small mud hole at park's entrance
Semipalmated Sandpiper: 7  Stopped on the tiny 'beach' for a minute
Laughing Gull: 29  Shipping pier just east of Armistead
Ring-billed Gull: 18
Herring Gull: 135+ Mostly on/around the island
Great Black-backed Gull: 50+  Island and shipping piers

Butterflies: 

Cabbage White: 1
Checkered White: 1  Flew along the weedy area west of the fishing area, not an expected species for this site
Monarch: 2

Brandon Woods:

Great Blue Heron: 1 at the pond
Little Blue Heron: 2 adult, at the pond
Killdeer: 2 at the ballfields
Turkey Vulture: 4
Red-shouldered Hawk: 1 immature at the ballfields
Cooper's Hawk: 1 adult, flew over the pond
Ruby-throated Hummingbird: 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: 1  Edges around ballfields
Cedar Waxwing: 2
Barn Swallow: 6
Eastern Bluebird: 2
Eastern Kingbird: 2
Common Yellowthroat: 1
Indigo Bunting: 5, with at least 3 immatures in the mix, ballfields
Blue Grosbeak: 1 male, adult, ballfields

Butterflies: (Brandon Woods Fields)

Tiger Swallowtail: 1
Black Swallowtail: 2
Cabbage White: 1
Orange Sulphur: 8
Cloudless Sulphur: 2
Buckeye: 15+
American Lady: 1 very worn
Eastern Tailed-Blue: 7  two of which were very fresh
Horace's Duskywing: 6
Cloudywing sp.: 5 
Common Checkered Skipper: 1
Delaware Skipper: 1
Least Skipper: 2
Northern Broken-Dash: 2
Sachem: 3
Monarch: 1


Matt Grey
Pasadena