What an excellent day to do field work! My first job for the day is to climb the meteorological tower and switch out mercury collection glassware and dump data from the digital rain gauge. Usually it takes me about 20 minutes but today it took at least double that. It started off with a N. Parula singing on the hillside. As I got up around 80-90 feet, I ran into a mixed warbler flock. How often do you get to look down on a Blackburnian or Black-throated Green Warbler?!

A couple of birds that got away. First was a vireo that sounded an awful lot like a philly but wouldn't show itself. Second was a rapid double tap note that made me think Ruby-crowned Kinglet. Again, no visual.

Off to do stream monitoring now. Hope the rest of the day is as good.
 
Tyler Bell

California, Maryland 

Location:    Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
Observation date:    9/1/09
Notes:    drive in back road to SERC and climb up and down meteorological tower
Number of species:    20

Black Vulture    7
Turkey Vulture    2
Osprey    1
Chimney Swift    5
Downy Woodpecker    1
Eastern Wood-Pewee    1
Red-eyed Vireo    2
Carolina Chickadee    1
Tufted Titmouse    2
White-breasted Nuthatch    1
Carolina Wren    1
American Robin    1
Northern Parula    1
Chestnut-sided Warbler    2
Black-throated Green Warbler    1
Blackburnian Warbler    1
American Redstart    3
Scarlet Tanager    1
Northern Cardinal    1
American Goldfinch    2

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)