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Subject:

Sands Road Park: Tuesday Afternoon

From:

Dan Haas

Reply-To:

Dan Haas

Date:

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 17:26:47 -0400

I had a very interesting afternoon at Sands Road Park.    Frustrating
in some of the misses.  Delight in the birds I was able to ID.

Notable finds:  TWO, possibly three GRASSHOPPER SPARROWS, two
BOBOLINKS, loads of Swamp, Savannah, Field and Song Sparrows and one
WILSON'S WARBLER.

MISSES / birds NOT making my eBird report:
-a probable VESPER SPARROW.  The bird flushed from the top of the
grassy hill, near an open dirt / gravel patch.  This particular
sparrow seemed bigger than the Savannah Sparrows that I'd been
flushing all afternoon, it's outer tail feathers looked light, but my
view was far too brief to confirm it as a Vesper.
-a silent fly-by DICKCISSEL.  It sure LOOKED like one, but uttered not
a sound and flew South when I was on the far Western side of the park.

And here is the BIG MISS!

From the higher ground, just West of where Jim Green described where
he flushed an AMERICAN BITTERN the other day... and where that SEDGE
WREN was last fall (NO, neither bird was there today!), a big surprise
flew out of the grasses. Near a deep ditch with small amounts of water
in it, I flushed a RAIL.  The bird was completely black, had a bill
with little length (in other words, not long like a Virginia, small
like a Sora).  The bird popped up and flew about 25 feet to the North.
 Again, the bird showed no rufous, no yellow, no gray... just BLACK.
I walked that direction, and it flushed again, about the same distance
in the opposite direction.  At that point I was unable to locate it,
but I did hear some noises coming from the area, best described as
very short squeaks.  I viewed the bird in flight twice from two angles
(both looking down, so the sun wasn't an issue).

I don't really know what to call it, since I can't say for certain it
was a SORA, and can't say that it wasn't a BLACK RAIL, but in my often
incorrect opinion, it was one or the other.  Anyone have any
suggestions for how to put this bird in eBird?

Sands Road Park, Anne Arundel, US-MD
Oct 18, 2011 12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
Protocol: Traveling
1.0 mile(s)
22 species

Canada Goose  24
Black Vulture  12
Turkey Vulture  8
Bald Eagle  1
Blue Jay  1
Carolina Chickadee  2
Carolina Wren  1
House Wren  1
Eastern Bluebird  3
Gray Catbird  1
Palm Warbler (Western)  1
Palm Warbler (Yellow)  1
Yellow-rumped Warbler  2
Wilson's Warbler  1
Field Sparrow  3
Savannah Sparrow  8
Grasshopper Sparrow  2     Very likely three birds.  Photos soon to be
posted here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nervousbird/
Song Sparrow  10
Swamp Sparrow  12
White-throated Sparrow  2
Northern Cardinal  2
Bobolink  2

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)

Good Birding,

Dan Haas
St. Margaret's, MD
nervousbirdsatgmail.com

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