I went to Lake Elkhorn in the early afternoon and saw an unusual bird. 
It looked like a pale Red-winged Blackbird. He was off-black (rather 
than deep true black), with a pure white shoulder patch (rather than 
yellow). I got a very good look at him sitting at the edge of a shrub at 
the north end of the bridge. He only fluttered a couple of feet once, so 
I didn't get a good look at what shade the red part of the shoulder 
patch was -- but the impression I got was that it was different from the 
usual orangey-red. (I wasn't able to get a photo, so only as an example, 
it looked very much like the picture in the big Sibley's of a Tricolored 
Blackbird.) Do red-wings have pale versions like some species do? Can 
any species have individuals that are pale?

Besides all the usual suspects, I also saw:

4 BLUE-WINGED TEAL (2 male and 2 female) (Forebay Pond)
Red-shouldered Hawk (perched on a tall snag calling over and over)
Spotted Sandpiper (Forebay Pond) (FOY)
2 Caspian Terns
Belted Kingfisher
Eastern Wood-Pewee (singing) (FOY)
Eastern Phoebe (singing)
Barn Swallows (busy building nests in the "gazebo" on the south side)
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (FOY)
Northern Parula (singing) (FOY)
Yellow-rumped Warbler (looking all sloppy, not fully into breeding 
plumage yet) (FOY)
Palm Warbler (gorgeous in full breeding plumage) (FOY)
Chipping Sparrow (FOY)
WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW (Forebay Pond, in bad company, with some House 
Sparrows)
White-throated Sparrow (still here)

I'm handicapped so I can't get out as much as I'd like to, so it was a 
treat to get all those nice FOY birds today!

Sherry
Howard County