Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 12:22:56 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: Brilliant day at Rock Creek, DC 5/7 Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hi all -- We decided not to let the fog this morning keep us from going to Rock Creek, since the night had been so clear to start, and with a favorable southerly wind. Plus the weather guys said it would burn off by 9 am (actually, it was gone by 8:30). We are very glad we went -- a truly brilliant day -- 20 species of warbler plus lots of others, including Black-billed Cuckoo and Lincoln's Sparrow. All of the sightings are from the area of the ridge, the lower equitation field (which was very active today), the maintenance yard, nature center and Military Field (the "dog run"). The list contains both seen and heard, and for some species, there are probable underestimates as we began to lose count of how many "blues" and "greens" we had heard. Warblers: Yellow-rumped (~250), Blackburnian (2 males), Black-and-White (6), Blackpoll (3), Black-throated Blue (12), Black-throated Green (8), Bay-breasted (2, one seen well by all), Cape May (2, again one seen sitting out singing for all to admire), Canada (1, singing at eye-level), Cerulean (1), Chestnut-sided (3), Hooded (1, in woods at ridge), Magnolia (2), Nashville (1), Ovenbird (4), Parula (8), Redstart (5), Tennessee (1), Yellow (1), Common Yellowthroat (2). Others: Yellow-billed Cuckoo (12!, many of them seen), Black-billed Cuckoo (1 at upper end of dog run, well-seen, probably same bird as seen by Jim Lemert yesterday in same spot, was giving soft cu-cu-cu-cu-cu call; another possible seen in flight at equitation field early, light poor but looked right), Ruby-throated Hummingbird (1), Great Crested Flycatcher (3), Eastern Kingbird (1), Red-eyed Vireo (~35, they were everywhere!), White-eyed Vireo (2), Swainson's Thrush (1), Wood Thrush (4), Scarlet Tanager (12), Baltimore Oriole (4), Lincoln's Sparrow (1, maintenance yard, found by Bill Dobbins), White-crowned Sparrow (1 adult maintenance yard, also found by Bill), Bobolink (2 females Military Field). Whew! Gail Mackiernan and Barry Cooper Silver Spring, MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================