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Subject:

WW Crossbills, ducks, field birding- Baltimore & Howard Counties

From:

Jim Wilkinson

Reply-To:

Jim Wilkinson

Date:

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:34:22 -0500

I had an enjoyable winter birding day (Jan 20). It started with an adult male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker at the cul de sac at the end of Brush Run in Columbia. Later in the AM, my wife and I went to Druid Ridge Cemetery in Baltimore County to look for White-winged Crossbills. Along with Jeff Culler, Harvey Mudd and Chris Murray, we saw two males and one female bird feeding on hemlock cones at the end of the row of hemlock trees closest to Reisterstown Road (on the west side of the cemetery). It was a real treat to see these boreal visitors to Maryland. After lunch we headed back to northern Howard County where we looked through some farm fields. A Savannah Sparrow on Underwood Road and one Horned Lark along Old Frederick just west of Route 32 were all the field birds I could find, but the pair of Northern Pintails flying with the mallards was nice. We ended the day at Centennial Park where we enjoyed a sunset flight of hundreds of Canada Geese coming to the remaining open water on the lake from nearby fields. In addition to the geese, we saw two male Canvasbacks, a few Ring-necked Ducks, two female Bufflehead, one Ruddy Duck and one American Coot.

Jim Wilkinson
Columbia, MD