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Subject:

lower Montgomery prothonotary and nesting Cooper's hawk

From:

Howard Youth

Reply-To:

Howard Youth

Date:

Fri, 2 May 2008 11:49:00 -0400

I walked along the hiker/biker trail from Meadowbrook Lane and 
East-West Hwy. north to this trail's intersection with the Audubon 
Naturalist Society trail, from about 8:15 to 10 a.m. There was a lot 
of activity but not a great variety of migrants. The most striking 
thing I saw was an apparent immature-plumaged Cooper's hawk, which 
landed on a stick nest in a tall pine near Audubon Naturalist Society 
headquarters:

Saw the bird for only three seconds, a large (female?), streaked 
accipiter overhead that once called "cuck" (surprised to see me?) and 
landed in a stick nest near the crown of a tall pine right next to 
the trail (just over 100 paces from the intersection with this Rock 
Creek Park trail and that of the trail starting there and heading 
left to Woodend). The bird had some tidbit of food in its bill which 
it either devoured or deposited in the nest. It then settled on the 
nest, only its tail tip protruding. It was gone when I returned 10 
minutes later.

The next prize goes to the singing prothonotary warbler, first heard 
around 11:05 not far west of Connecticut Avenue, at the edge of Rock 
Creek along Beach Drive. I heard it again when I drove back home at 
11:25, only this time it was closer to the intersection of Beach 
Drive and Cedar Lane, again along the creek.

 From this morning's walk, the following highlights:

yellow-throated vireo (1)
warbling vireo (3)
blue-headed vireo (1)

Nashville warbler (1)
yellow warbler (1)
northern parula (4)

eastern kingbird (5)
Acadian flycatcher (1)

wood thrush (2)
Swainson's thrush (1)

orchard oriole (2-4)
Baltimore oriole (close to a dozen)

Howard Youth

Bethesda, MD