Jim Stasz, I'm sure, will post more about this later but I want to clear 
up a couple of things. The actual date that this bird was first observed 
by Jim and me was January 26th, not December 26th. When we saw the bird 
it was in much poorer lighting than today and we didn't get to see the 
bird for long. I had it in my camera's viewfinder and I snapped an image 
moments after the bird dove from its perch and did not get an shot. We 
searched for quite some time after spotting the bird and never got 
another clean look at it. We first identified the bird as a Virginia's 
Warbler based on what we felt was a gray bird with a white eye-ring and 
yellow undertail coverts. During our search we briefly saw a bird that 
we felt was a Western Palm and wrote the first bird off as that and 
figured it was just due to poor lighting, certainly the bird couldn't 
have been what we thought we had seen.

Obviously that isn't the case considering the looks obtained when the 
bird was spotted by Jim and others this afternoon. At about 5 o'clock I 
had a warbler fly up into a leafless tree about 10 yards away from me 
but the setting sun was directly in line with it. The bird flew off to 
the north and it was then that I was able to see that the bird had 
bright yellow coverts, so it seems that the bird is really favoring the 
location where we had it 3 weeks ago and it had been seen earlier today.

Good luck to all the search. Jim's picture is certainly identifiable but 
hopefully someone will better documentation.

Ed Boyd
Chestnut Hill Cove, MD

On 2/15/2012 7:02 PM, Les Roslund wrote:
> Maryland Birders - This afternoon Jim Stasz found a Virginia's Warbler along
> the Pickering Creek path between the parking lot and the first pond
> observation platform.  First he had just a glimpse.  A bit later he got a
> longer look and managed a very convincing photograph.   That occurred around
> 2:30 p.m.  By 4:00 he was joined by Dan Haas, Phil Davis and myself, and we
> four attained reasonable though not awesome views of the bird.  I stayed
> until 5:30 at which time there were 10 cars in the parking lot, but no
> additional views of the bird had been made.
>
>
>
> Virginia's Warbler is a bird of the far west, often in mountainous areas.  I
> saw some in New Mexico several years ago.  This Pickering Creek sighting is
> the first ever for Maryland, and possibly only the third recorded east of
> the Mississippi River.
>
>
>
> Stasz, with Ed Boyd, had seen this bird on Dec 26, 2011, but could not
> believe their eyes, so crossed it off as a Palm Warbler.  This time they got
> the photograph.  In view of the December sighting, in almost exactly the
> same bushes where it was seen today, there is reason to believe the bird has
> been here all that time, and hence it really ought to still be here for at
> least the next few days.  It was last seen near the tall cedar trees south
> of the old barn.  Prior to that it had moved from bush to bush in the
> adjacent shrubs, and used shrubs on either side of the path.  It seemed to
> be favoring groundsel bushes but also used some of the multiflora roses.  It
> was never farther down the path than about half way to the pond platform.
> It was staying at eye-level or below,  was characterized by straight-line
> flight, had a long tail which it wagged when perched, looked grey overall
> unless on was looking through a scope, had a very fine bill, and had some
> resemblance to a Gnatcatcher.  Kind of nervous and jumpy behavior like the
> Gnatcatcher also.
>
>
>
> With luck this bird should come out to feed along that path tomorrow
> morning.
>
>
>
> Les Roslund
>
>
> ############################
>
> To unsubscribe from the MDOSPREY list:
> write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
> or click the following link:
> http://home.ease.lsoft.com/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=MDOSPREY&A=1
>

############################

To unsubscribe from the MDOSPREY list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=MDOSPREY&A=1