Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 11:11:03 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Kerry Stone Organization: American Geophysical Union Subject: Merkle Wildlife Sanctuary trip MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hi bird friends: Just wanted to update everyone on a good trip to Merkle Wildlife Sanctuary yesterday. A birding friend, Cheryl Jennings (also a member of this list) and I saw 35 species yesterday before it started raining. * Northern Flickers - flock of at least 10 in the field at the end of Croom Airport Road - I've never seen flickers eating in flocks before - so it was very cool. Has anyone seen this behavior before? * Eastern Phoebe * Tree Swallows - I saw more Tree Swallows at the Bluebird boxes than Bluebirds. Is this a threat to the rising number of bluebird due to the bird box program? * Eastern Towhee (at least 10 throughout the drive) singing like crazy * Starlings (of course) * Eastern Bluebirds * Golden-crowned Kinglet * Yellow-rumped Warbler (tons and tons throughout the sanctuary) * Northern Mockingbird * Red-Winged Blackbirds * American Crow * Chickadee * Tufted Titmouse * Mourning Doves * Turkey Vulture * Cardinal * Chipping Sparrows * Two Hermit Thrushes - perched on a branch at eye level - very cool!! The male was opening and closing his beak but nothing came out. Seemed like a scared teenager nervous about asking a girl out. * Downy Woodpecker * Red-bellied Woodpecker * Osprey - one in a homemade nest high in a tree across the water from the skyscraper observation tower. In addition to the ospreys around the sanctuary on the manmade nest sites. It was nice to see an original osprey nest. * Mallards - a pair * Great Blue Herons - and saw one perched on the nest in the rookery next to the eagle's nest, right after the first bridge. In fact, look at the tree line and you'll see about 8-10 nests along the tree line. * Pine Warbler - from the skyscraper observation tower. * American Pipits - about 30 of them in the last plowed field on the right before the visitor's center. * Brown Thrasher * American Kestrel At the visitor's center: * Bald Eagle - perched in the trees to the right of the visitor center above the pond. * Common Snipes * Killdeer * Greater Yellowlegs - on the water's edge directly behind the visitor's center. * Green winged Teal * White-crowned Sparrow * White throated Sparrow * House Sparrow Oh yeah, and several Canada geese! Good day. Kerry Stone ---------------- Takoma Park, MD kstone@agu.org ---------------- ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================