Hi Everyone,

Carol and I were part of the parade through the Kibler-Round Top-Leverage Rd area of northern Queen Annes Co yesterday.  Thanks to Dan Small, Maren Gimpel, Jim B., Mikey, and Jo Anna for much helpful information in advance.

Like Mikey and Jo Anna, we did not cross paths with the Northern Shrike despite about an hour of searching the area; but we did get to see a Ross's Goose in the giant Snow Goose flock at the intersection of Kibler and Round Top roads--thanks, Mikey and Jo Anna!

The big shock was a fly-by flock of ca. 20 birds that flew over Round Top Rd (near the Kibler Rd intersection) at about 3:15 pm.  The flock was flying fairly low--perhaps 30-40 feet above the ground--in good, bright sunlight.  I first noticed the white on the wings of the less colorful birds in the flock, and my sorting, birder brain reflexively ran through a couple options like Snow Bunting without finding a match.  Then I noticed one of the beautiful red birds in the flock!  The sorter went to Pine Grosbeak first--no, too much white in the wings.  I yelled, pointing, a couple times to Carol: "White-winged Crossbill!!"  She was also able to get a nice look at the flock as it flew past us.  It all happened pretty quickly, but we both came to an estimate of 20 for the number of birds in the flock; certainly there were more than a dozen, but we cannot report an exact number.  How cool!!

After trying unsuccessfully to find the flock perched somewhere, and after further searching for the Northern Shrike, we moved over to Leverage Rd to enjoy the Horned Larks, American Pipits (4 by the road), Snow Buntings, and Lapland Longspurs.  We happily settled for one each of the bunting and longspur.  The big Horned Lark flock was pretty far from the road at this time, and a scope was key for enjoying the Lapland Longspur and Snow Bunting fully.  Dan Small pulled up soon after we got here, and we enjoyed chatting and scoping for a while before we headed toward home.

Wouldn't it be nice if missing target birds were always this fruitful!

Have fun,

Ron Gutberlet
Salisbury, MD