Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 11:38:30 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: Whippoorwill in yard + Layhill Park 4/18 Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hi all -- Today started with some excitement at 5:45 when we were letting one of our dogs out, a Whippoorwill right in our yard, in fact, right in a tree over the deck -- started calling vigorously! Unfortunately by the time we located the flashlight it had stopped. A new yard bird! Later in the morning we went over to Layhill Park, Montgomery Co. The best birds were in the north end, just after the two little stream crossings -- a very large, vocal flock of Goldfinches with at least 20-25 PURPLE FINCHES with them, all feeding on alder and elm flowers, and then coming down to drink in some swampy puddles. Wonderful "gripping" looks at many brilliant males in full spring colors. We continued on the trail, and located another Goldfinch flock -- this one also had Purple Finches mixed in, about 5-6 of them. Other birds of interest: 6-8 Parula Warblers singing, saw one pair apparently on territory. 5-6 Yellowthroats singing lots of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers 6 Savannah Sparrows near the old farm 8 Broadwings passing over 1 Hermit Thrush good numbers of singing Towhees, Field and Chipping Sparrows distant calling Barred owl 5-6 Great Blue Herons along Northwest Branch -- in the woods, rather odd spot. We also have a House Wren back, arrived yesterday (4/17) Cheers, Gail Mackiernan Colesville, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================