Sightings in Eastern Montgomery County
Warblerick (Warblerick@aol.com)
Sun, 15 Mar 1998 08:03:58 EST
A friend and I hit the local ponds, etc. here in eastern Montgomery county
yesterday morning, looking for anything new (for the season, anyway). Still
have yet to see/hear my first osprey or phoebe for the year in this county.
What we did find were some of the usual ducks (Blacks, Mallards, Buffleheads,
Ruddy, Ring-neckeds, Common and Hooded Mergs), Red-tailed and shouldered Hawks
in small numbers, and a couple of our "target" birds. At Greenbridge Rd. on
the Triadelphia Reservoir we saw and heard our first singing Pine Warbler,
which perched in the top of a maple tree and sang only long enough to be
scoped before it took off, and we never saw it again.
At a small, spring-fed field adjacent to a farm on Sundown Rd. we tried hard
to locate a snipe, where we usually find one or two throughout the winter
season. Finally, after much fruitless searching, I walked left and scanned up
the spring and flushed 6 Common Snipe. 4 landed further back in a small mud-
hole-like pond, where they began activally feeding. The other two landed only
a short distance away, but we could locate only one as it sat perfectly still
among the rank growth of weeds. Wonderful scope views!!
Later, at Triadelphia Reservoir (which is now as high as I've ever seen it,
after months of low water levels), we scoped the eagles nest, which had one
adult in it. The other was nowhere around. But because of the high water, it
was difficult to even see the nest from the edge of the fire road. After we
left here, we decided to try Triadelphia Lake Rd. to see what was up at the
top of the reservoir. We walked the trail to the top of the "lake" and found,
what was for me, the largest raft of Ring-necked Ducks I've ever seen. There
were easily 250-300 birds feeding way across the water, where the Patuxent
flows into the reservoir. And, they were almost all very actively feeding,
though a few would occassionally roll over and preen. Among this large flock
we found 2 male and 1 female Northern Shovelers, a nice addition to the days
waterfowl.
Rick Sussman
Ashton,MD.
Warblerick@aol.com