Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2004 21:45:12 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Edward Boyd Subject: Bohemian Waxwing in MD - Eastern Shore MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Greetings, The waxwings were seen on the grounds of the Tuckahoe Nursery. The directions posted earlier by Phil Davis are correct: Take MD 301 N from the Bay Bridge. Left (west) on John Brown Rd Left (south) on Rt 18 Go 1/4 and on left (east side of road) is a nursery; the birds are generally in 6-8 foot tall fruit trees. The nursery grounds can also be accessed by driving north on Rte 18 from Queenstown but we feel the above route works better. Parking is limited at the location of the waxwings. Just south of where the birds were seen and on the west (opposite) side of the road, there is room for 2-3 vehicles, possibly a couple of more. Farther south on the east side there appears to be some more room along the shoulder for autos to park. WARNING, this is a somewhat busy road. Be sure that your vehicle is clear of the roadway. The shoulders are soft from the thaw and all of the rain; becareful that you don't get stuck in the mud. Additional parking is available along the shoulder of John Brown Road. I would recommend this since the road isn't as busy and the shoulders seem to be able to handle vehicles better. It's an easy 1/4 mile walk to the south (left) from the intersection to the spot the birds were seen. The birds are found on the south side of the nursery in 6 rows of an ornamental fruit tree that are just dripping with fruit, literally. We were not sure of what kind of tree they were but the fruit resembles clusters of cherries and are the size and consistancy of over-ripened crab-apples. The trees have large amounts of fruit both on the branches and covering the ground under the trees. It looks as though the nursery can support this population of birds for some time. The waxwings were first seen early this morning when an estimated 500+ birds were seen flying around and out of the nursery. Zach Baer returned to this spot this afternoon to look through the flock of waxwings and estimated that closer to 1,000 waxwings may have been present at mid-afternoon. Jim Stasz and I just happened to be driving along this stretch of road while checking out a reported possible location for short-eared owl when we saw Zach and decided to stop. When we arrived, there was still a massive number of waxwings above and around the nursery grounds along with robins, bluebirds and a few starlings. The birds are very active and groups of 50 to 100 birds fly up and circle the nursery every few minutes. Some of these flocks would fly up into the trees bordering the grounds while others would cross the road and land in the deciduous tress behind the pines on the west side of the road. After about 15 minutes, Zack mentioned a report of 4 Bohemian Waxwings from New Jersey and said that this was his motivation for returning to view the flock this afternoon. About 30 seconds later, one of these flocks flew out of the nursery and crossed the road almost directly over where we were standing. We were looking through the flock when Jim hollared out, BOHEMIAN WAXWING, NO SH#*! Zach got on the bird immediately but I could only seem to lock in on the starlings that were mixed in. The birds flew back to the east and returned to the trees in the nursery. While I tried to relocate the bird and see it for myself, Zach drove to the operations buildings of the nursery to try to obtain permission to enter the grounds to better see the birds. While he was gone, the flock containing the Bohemian flew out of the nursery again and I was able to lock onto the bird. This time, the flock landed in the decidous trees behind the pines on the west side. Zack returned to tell us the he did not have permission to enter the property because no one could be found. We told him about where the bird was last seen and he set off to circle behind the pines and see if he could find it while Jim and I proceeded to start making phone calls. Several minutes later he called out that he had the bird. Jim and I ran to join him but the birds had flew off again when we got there. He stated that the Bohemian had been in the top of one of the trees along with a flock of cedar waxwings and that he had gotten an excellent look at the bird from about 30 feet. The deciduous trees turned out to be mixed with hawthorn trees and it appears that the waxwings were landing in these hawthorn trees, perhaps eating the fruit that was still remaining on their branches. A few minutes after return to the shoulder of the road we saw the bird cross the road again in a flock of cedar waxwings and again land in the same trees as before. This time I got excellent views of the bird in flight, especially as it was gliding into the wind and then droppoing out of view into the tops of the trees. The bird was clearly a waxwing. The head was crested with a black mask and throat patch. The bill was neither thin nor thick and was somewhat short and bluntly tipped. The bird was evenly colored from the base of the black throat patch to the belly, As with cedar waxwings, the underside coloration was strikingly smooth, even as it extended to the axillaries and coverts of the wings. The wings were triangular and pointed and the birds overall shape was reminiscent of European Starling although the tail was more rectangular and tipped with yellow. This bird differed from the flocks of Cedar Waxwings in which was associating with by having a larger size; not as large as a European Starling that is was also with, but about halfway between the two. The underside coloration was much darker and grayer in comparison to the tan undersides of the Cedar Waxwings. This bird's underside coloration was also even throughout and did not become noticable lighter from chest to belly like that of the Cedar Waxwing. Most striking, however, were the bright rufous undertail coverts that were easily seen and compared to the white undertail coverts of the Cedar Waxwings in flight around it. The bird was first found at around 3:45 PM with the sun at about 40 degrees high in the southwestern sky. This made for ideal lighting conditions as the bird was seen flying from the east and passing overhead, but slightly to the north of being directly overhead. The sky was generally unobstructed with only about 20% cloud cover. This was my fist experience with this species. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Phil Davis" To: Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2004 4:01 PM Subject: [MDOSPREY] Bohemian Waxwing in MD - Eastern Shore > Just got a call from Ed Boyd. He is with Jim Stasz. > > Take MD 301 N from the Bay Bridge. > > L (west) on John Brown Rd > > L (south) on Rt 18 > > 1/4 on left (east side of road) is a nursery; 6-8 foot fruit trees, > about 1000 waxwings. At least one Bohemian. > > Go. Hurry! Good luck! > > Phil > > > > ================================== > Phil Davis Davidsonville, Maryland USA > mailto:PDavis@ix.netcom.com > ================================== > > ====================================================================== > = > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================