I led an intrepid group of six hardy souls on this rainy, gray morning on a Montgomery Bird Club walk from Pennyfield Lock to Violette's Lock on the C&O Canal. The weather made for poor viewing conditions for the many migrant warblers moving through. We had good-sized groups of migrants, primarily warblers, at several points along the almost 3 miles we walked, but many of them remained high in trees and hard to see in the gray light. Even so, we tallied 47 species for the morning. We had nine species of warblers that at least some of us were able to see well, including my clearest view yet of a Worm-eating Warbler. In most cases the flocks were clearly moving south as we would see them briefly on the north side of the Canal and then they would fly over us to the south and out of view. The River was fairly quiet except for large numbers of swallows flying low near the Virginia shore. We did NOT see the group of Glossy Ibis that apparently flew from Violette's to Great Falls this morning, but we had nice views of two adult Bald Eagles, including one catching a fish. Near the end of the walk just short of Violette's we had large numbers of Common Grackles, perhaps related to the large numbers reported at Hughes Hollow a little earlier this morning. Our sole Yellow-billed Cuckoo had a very short, ragged tail, perhaps a young bird completing its molt. Similarly, the tails on many of the Grackles we saw were incomplete or with some short and some long feathers, giving the impression of a scissortail in some cases. Lots of young Northern Cardinals were still making their characteristic sounds in the bushes along the towpath. Our Sharp-shinned Hawk was pursued by a group of Blue Jays.
The complete list from my eBird report is below.
Jim Nelson
Bethesda, MD
Location: C&O Canal, Pennyfield Lock
Observation date: 9/12/10
Notes: Montgomery Bird Club walk. Rainy, drizzly, and overcast. Not ideal conditions for viewing the many migrant warblers.
Number of species: 47
Wood Duck 4
duck sp. 4
Pied-billed Grebe 1
Double-crested Cormorant 11
Great Blue Heron 6
Great Egret 1
Green Heron 1
Turkey Vulture 1
Bald Eagle 2
Sharp-shinned Hawk 1
Cooper's Hawk 1
Killdeer 1
Mourning Dove 2
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 1
Chimney Swift 42
hummingbird sp. 2
Belted Kingfisher 2
Red-bellied Woodpecker 10
Downy Woodpecker 8
Northern Flicker 1
Pileated Woodpecker 7
Eastern Wood-Pewee 7
Eastern Phoebe 3
Red-eyed Vireo 3
Blue Jay 40
American Crow 6
Tree Swallow 12
swallow sp. 48
Carolina Chickadee 36
Tufted Titmouse 32
White-breasted Nuthatch 5
Carolina Wren 9
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 2
American Robin 32
Gray Catbird 3
Chestnut-sided Warbler 5
Magnolia Warbler 8
Black-throated Green Warbler 9
Blackburnian Warbler 1
Bay-breasted Warbler 5
Black-and-white Warbler 3
American Redstart 7
Worm-eating Warbler 2
Common Yellowthroat 2
warbler sp. 50
Scarlet Tanager 2
Northern Cardinal 37
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 1
Indigo Bunting 1
Common Grackle 180
American Goldfinch 1
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org) |