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


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