Hi Gail, Barry and all,
 Well, you had some of the birds we dipped on. Alli and I (and a friend and her visiting aunt) covered Blue Mash, the old Oaks landfill (drive-through only, while still dark. A lovely sunrise seen from the top of the landfill though...), and parts of Gregg Rd and Riggs Rd. We netted a mere 35 species, feeling lucky at that. Our best finds were probably a nice female N. Harrier, very close, at Blue Mash, a flyover adult Bald Eagle carrying something that looked like a skull, a bagel, or perhaps a turtle, though probably none of the above. Whatever it was, it was an odd looking thing for an eagle to be carrying. In a small wetland patch on old Gregg Rd. we found 3 Wilson's Snipe, a nice find in this weather. One flew off as I walked around the patch, then I found another actively feeding which we watched for awhile, then another flew out. This has been a reliable spot for many years for this species at this time of year, and we were happy with our find.
 
We had good numbers of N. Flickers, and bluebirds, 3 Hermit Thrushes, fair numbers of Robins, juncos and Mockingbirds, but very low numbers of the other few species of sparrows we managed to find. Not even a Field Sparrow at Blue Mash! We did find about half a dozen Savannahs at the landfill though. No owls, but we did find fairly fresh whitewash and some pellets at Blue Mash, probably from E. Screech Owl.  Not a towhee to be found anywhere today, but the pond at Blue Mash did have 6 Ring-necked Ducks, our only waterfowl other than C. geese.
 
Big misses include nuthatch, creeper, sapsucker, White-crowned , Field, and Swamp Sparrows (also Fox and A. Tree). 
 
A bit breezy in our area, which likley kept the sparrows hunkered down (actually it was windy to downright howling this afternoon!).

Rick Sussman
Woodbine,MD


-----Original Message-----
From: Gail Mackiernan <>
To: 
Sent: Sat, Jan 2, 2010 3:23 pm
Subject: [MDOSPREY] some Triadelphia CBC birds


Hi all --
(Still thawing out) -- Barry and I did upper NW Branch Park (where the
rolley Museum has been moved) without very high expectations due to the
xposed habitat in this wind and cold. However things proved better than
xpected, and in sheltered hedgerows and areas on the eastern edge of the
ark (where there are some backyard feeders) we saw good numbers of the
xpected passerines as well as an *unexpected* 6 FOX SPARROWS, 3 CHIPPING
PARROWS, and an unprecedented (for us) 10 or more TOWHEES. A near-by
etland area yielded 2 SWAMP SPARROWS -- have never missed this species
ere. The expected White-throats, Song, Field and Junco made it a good
parrow day.
However we dipped 100% on owls of any species, first time for this, but the
earby ICC construction is probably disturbing their regular roost trees. No
aterfowl other than Canada Geese, everything was frozen solid.
Feeders were active  and ours and a neighbor's had very large numbers of the
ommon species.
Gail Mackiernan and Barry Cooper
olesville, MD