MD Osprey:

Just to elaborate on Stan Arnold's earlier message from Wednesday morning ...

Stan and Elaine arrived at the Sycamore Landing parking lot just 
minutes before me yesterday morning, around 9:15 am. (We were very 
surprised that no other birders were present to chase this great MD 
bird. We could have used more eyes!)

We walked upriver along the towpath to the spot that Dave Czaplak 
described where he saw the Bullock's on Tuesday afternoon. Bird 
activity was pretty quiet until we arrived at the exact spot Dave had 
described, about 30 yards upstream of where the turf farm property 
begins. At this spot we found about 100 waxwings, a few Yellow-rumped 
Warblers, lots of woodpeckers, and Carolina Wrens. There were no 
robins present. Soon we found an oriole, but it was an obvious 
Baltimore. About 10 minutes later, we saw a second different oriole, 
but it also a Baltimore. Later, we saw two of the Baltimore cavorting 
together and we are pretty sure we saw a third Baltimore nearby. I 
noted the the orioles did not seem to be flying with the waxwing 
flocks, but rather were often a bit lower in the trees, gleaning 
food. This flock of birds did not seem to move up and down the 
towpath, but rather flew perpendicular to it. When the two orioles 
were seen together, they had flow in from the direction of the river.

We were joined about 9:45 by Jo Solem and Emmy Holdridge. Stan and 
Elaine had to leave to head for points west for Thanksgiving. A bit 
later we were joined by Dave Czaplak. Jo and Emmy had to leave around 
12:30 pm. Dave and I split up, he headed back down to the parking 
area since it was birding there when he had arrived. I stayed at the 
"hot spot" and then headed upriver for a while. Further up, things 
got quite birdy (including lots of woodpecker activity) but I found 
no other orioles.

I departed around 1:30 and Dave was still working the edges of the 
fields around the parking area. (It took me about 3 hours to get home 
on this rainy, holiday get-away day. My GPS routed me down Wisconsin 
Ave to Western Ave, at the DC line and then east to avoid the mess on 
the beltway!)

Please report all sighting attempts, including negative reports over 
the rest of this long weekend.

Good luck!

Phil



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Phil Davis      Davidsonville, Maryland     USA
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