Like Fred, this morning at Governor Bridge, I had a bunch of Common Loons
flying over: one group of 15 and then a single bird. All of them were
following the Patuxent River northward. Governor Bridge is about 9.15 miles
north of Schoolhouse Pond, so if we assume the loons were flying about 40
mph, then it would only take them ~13 minutes to get from over Fred's head
to over mine!

Rob Ostrowski
Crofton, MD



On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 8:21 AM, Fred Shaffer <>wrote:

> I've had some good mornings at Schoolhouse Pond over the last few weeks,
> but today felt like something special.  I saw a few new spring arrivals,
> had massive numbers of flyover gulls, and had the biggest flight of flyover
> Common Loons that I've ever seen at the pond for one morning.  Highlights
> included 33 Common Loons, one Black-crowned Night Heron, the continuing
> singing Yellow-throated Warbler, and 4 Bonaparte's Gulls.
>
> The gulls flew over in especially big numbers this morning, with the
> majority of birds heading in the general direction of the Brown Station
> Road landfill.  Totals included 291 Laughing Gulls, 155 Herring Gulls, 24
> Ring-billed Gulls, and 4 flyover Bonaparte's Gulls.  The Bonaparte's Gulls
> were my first of the spring at Schoolhouse Pond.  It was interesting to
> note that, while there were exceptions, the gulls largely stuck to
> single-species flocks, with the Laughing Gulls being especially vocal and
> the Herring Gulls consisting of mostly immature gulls.  The Bonaparte's
> Gulls consisted of a tightly clustered group of four, slightly off-set from
> a larger group of Laughing Gulls.
>
> The flyover Common Loons were probably the highlight of the morning.  I've
> had small groups of migrants at the pond before (including groups up to 15,
> I believe), but today was an unusually heavy flight, at least in my
> experience.  Flyover loons consisted of groups of 10, 4, 6, 4, 6, and 3.
>  And, I easily could have missed some loons as birds were flying over fast
> and furious at one point when I was torn between group of ten flyover
> loons, the cluster of Bonaparte's Gulls, several dozen Herring and Laughing
> Gulls, and the singing Yellow-throated Warbler.
>
> Other highlights included the arrival of a Black-crowned Night Heron.  I
> believe that it is a second spring bird, as it had the pattern of an adult,
> but extremely washed out and muted.  Also, the Yellow-throated Warbler
> continues to sing at the rear of the pond.  I got decent views of it
> yesterday.  This morning it stayed out of sight, but I could hearing
> singing from the treetops near the trail.  Other birds of note included 2
> Chipping Sparrows, 1 Field Sparrow (somewhat out of the ordinary for the
> pond), an Eastern Phoebe, and two Pileated Woodpeckers.  Good birding,
>
> Fred Shaffer
> 
> Crofton, Anne Arundel
>
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