I led a bird walk for the Montgomery Bird Club and the Montgomery County Chapter of the Sierra Club at Blue Mash this beautiful Sunday morning.  We met at 7:30 and birded the trail for 90 minutes then had the opportunity to bird inside the closed Oaks Landfill as part of a tour of the landfill operations courtesy of the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection.  It was interesting to see what is actually within the fenced territory and also very interesting to see how methane gas and liquid leachate from the landfill are captured and treated.  

From the birding perspective, highlights were many Canada Geese leaving their resting area within the landfill and large numbers of American Crows leaving a roost.  We had at least 40 Killdeer flying around and then saw them again on the black plastic liner at the collection ponds inside the landfill.  At the same location we had a yellowlegs (looked like a Lesser to some but sounded like a Greater in flight) and an unidentified small shorebird (no one had a scope).  On the smaller pond visible through the fence from the nature trail we had a Northern Shoveler and a good-sized flock of Green-winged Teal.  Unfortunately our landfill tour started right about the time the sparrows were becoming active, so we didn't see as many as we probably would have had we been able to linger on the nature trail longer.

A complete list from my eBird report follows.

Jim Nelson
Bethesda, MD

Location:     Blue Mash Nature Trail
Observation date:     10/25/09
Notes:     Bird walk with Sierra Club/Montgomery Bird Club including inside the closed landfill.
Number of species:     40

Canada Goose     200
Mallard     8
Northern Shoveler     1
Green-winged Teal     30
Pied-billed Grebe     1
Great Blue Heron     2
Black Vulture     8
Turkey Vulture     5
Accipiter sp.     2
Red-shouldered Hawk     1
Red-tailed Hawk     1
American Kestrel     1
Killdeer     40
Greater/Lesser Yellowlegs     1
Mourning Dove     16
Red-bellied Woodpecker     4
Downy Woodpecker     4
Northern Flicker     6
Eastern Phoebe     1
Blue Jay     36
American Crow     150
Carolina Chickadee     6
Tufted Titmouse     5
White-breasted Nuthatch     2
Carolina Wren     18
Ruby-crowned Kinglet     1
Eastern Bluebird     17
American Robin     18
Northern Mockingbird     8
European Starling     8
Yellow-rumped Warbler     17
Palm Warbler (Yellow)     1
Eastern Towhee     3
Field Sparrow     1
Song Sparrow     3
Swamp Sparrow     1
White-throated Sparrow     14
Dark-eyed Junco     1
Northern Cardinal     12
House Finch     4
American Goldfinch     24
House Sparrow     2