Hi Everybody:
 I led a Montgomery Bird Club trip to Washington County on Wed. 5/23 and was joined by Dave Powell and Mike Welch. Dave and I arrived at Blair Valley Lake at about 5 :30 AM and did some early scouting of the area and then were joined by Mike at 7 AM. We found the perimeter of the lake and adjacent areas to be very quiet and uneventful and quickly moved on. For most of the morning we explored various parts of Indian Springs WMA making numerous stops and walking short distances primarily from the road but also explored some field and forest edges as well. Some of the breeding warblers we saw +/or heard included Blue-winged, Hooded, Kentucky, Worm-eating and Yellow-breasted Chat.

We tallied 17 species of warblers with only three of them being migrants. We saw a Black-throated Green on Hanging Rock Rd, a Magnolia Warbler on Kuhns (some maps have it as Coons) Ridge Rd and had great looks at a singing N. Waterthrush at Camp Harding Park. We also had our only Broad-winged Hawk and a single adult Red-headed Woodpecker in the same park. 

We then "crawled" our away across Broadfording Road heading east from Clear Spring to Hagerstown. We made quite a few stops scanning appropriate farm fields in hopes of finding a closeout Bobolink for Dave but would have no luck with this endeavor. But along the way we heard numerous Horned Larks, Grasshopper Sparrows and Eastern Meadowlarks. West of the intersection of Spickler Rd we found a very cooperative VESPER SPARROW and then just beyond that (still west of Spickler Rd) we first heard two and then saw 4 different DICKCISSELS all in the same field (south side of Broadfording). This is the first time that I have ever had Dickcissels on this road. All of my previous Washington County Dickcissels have been seen at Antietam Battlefield and if I recall correctly I have only seen one at a time there in previous years.

 About a 1/2 mile east of Spickler Rd we made another stop and while we were setting up a scope to look at what ended up being our 5th Dickcissel we clearly heard the unmistakable flight song of an UPLAND SANDPIPER (behind us from the direction where we had just come from) on the north side of the road. Within 30 seconds we heard it a second time. Despite walking back down the road we did not hear it again and had no luck in spotting the Uppie. 

Once we hit Hagerstown the rest of our day was focused on checking out potential shorebird spots. Despite the amount of rain that had fallen in the last 24 hours in Washington County most locations either had received too much rain or not enough to attract shorebirds overnight. Behind the Hagerstown Airport the pond was quite full of water with no edges. We only had 1 Spotted Sandpiper sitting on a rock whereas 2 weeks ago with a lesser amount of water Kathy Calvert and I had 6 species of shorebirds there. We did have a single Greater Yellowlegs at the end of the road where the Loggerhead Shrike was hanging out last year. 

We ended up the day with 90 species and with the skies opening up with hard rain at about 4 PM we called it a day without going to any of the  C & O Canal spots or the Antietam Battlefield. We felt lucky that we had avoided the rain up until that time.

Jim Green
Gaithersburg, MD

work in moderation, BIRD IN EXCESS!!!

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