A total of seven people showed up for the Schoolhouse Pond Big Sit.  Observations were recorded from 6:25 AM - 6:45 PM and the Marlboro Flaming County Seaters totaled 61 species.  This is slightly down from our previous counts of 64, 66 and 65 species.  But, I think that an enjoyable day was had by everyone present and there were a few unusual birds around in addition to the expected species.  The weather was truly spectacular.

Perhaps the highlight for me was when Jeff Shenot spotted a flyover Eastern Meadowlark fairly early in the morning.  We got brief views of the bird as it passed overhead heading south.  As meadowlarks breed fairly close to Upper Marlboro on several sides, this isn't completely unexpected, but I had never seen one while I've been birding around the pond.  Other highlights included a late flyover Broad-winged Hawk, the regular Barred Owl (calling throughout  the day), and some very active Bald Eagles.  At one point in the afternoon I had 3 Bald Eagles within my binocular's field of view at the same time, 2 adults and 1 immature.

Some new arrivals at the pond for the fall included 2 White-throated Sparrows and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.  Other birds present included a Brown Thrasher, Scarlet Tanager, several Great Egrets, and an immature Double-crested Cormorant.  Also of interest to me was the huge number of flyover gulls.  We had significantly more than I've seen on our other big sits and I tried to keep track of the numbers as they passed overhead, sometimes in a continuous stream and at other times in large groups.  We recorded over 1,500 Laughing Gulls, 85 Ring-billed Gulls, 45 Herring Gulls, and a surprising group of 8 Bonaparte's Gulls.  Most of the gulls were seen in the morning or early afternoon heading to the landfill, although it should be noted that the Bonaparte's Gulls were headed the opposite direction towards Jug Bay (also in the morning). 

We did very poorly for warblers, only seeing Common Yellowthroats and Yellow-rumped Warblers.  Other bad misses included Pileated Woodpecker and Red-shouldered Hawk, both of which have nested at the pond.  Waterfowl was limited to the usual Mallards, Wood Ducks, Canada Geese and one Mute Swan and we were excited to have a group of four scaup sp. fly low over the pond in the afternoon.  Of course, this was also our first year without Trumpeter Swan #962, which I last observed at the pond on March 23 of this year.

Good birding!

Fred Shaffer
Patuxent MOS