Yesterday at home I enjoyed the beautiful fall colors while doing lots of needed outdoor chores, and with a little local birding sprinkled in for balance!  At my house in the morning I had a few surprises including a brief visit from a pair of Meadowlarks (they landed for about ten minutes, then left); a Red-headed Woodpecker (adult) that flew across yard and briefly perched in top of dead tree; and I also enjoyed a very light but steady trickle of Chimney Swifts that came by in very small groups of 1-5 birds with occasionally a few more than that, all headed south.  I looked at all of them as best I could, and all were Chimneys; at the end the flight amounted to 207 swifts.

In the afternoon I went down the river a piece, to Milltown Landing Road, River Airport Road, and a piece of Croom Rd to look for field birds.  I was hoping maybe for a Lark Sparrow or Clay-colored but was not surprised to come up empty with these species.  However, I did find a Dickcissel at Milltown Landing Road that briefly perched long enough to get a nice scope view.  It was at the wildlife management area, next to the lane that goes downhill from the house toward the river, in the area of nice habitat just befoew the first barn (on the left).  This is a great area for sparrows, but they were VERY skittish while I was there.  I think due to the very windy day, plus about 70 laughing gulls were hawking bugs over the area the entire time I was there.  This created an impression of a constant divebombing threat, and essentially a reminder of the potential threat of predators from the shy perspective of a sparrow.  Anyhow, I felt lucky to find the Dickcissel, it's the first one I found on my own here, and only the second I've seen in the County.  Maybe it was from one of the big number of them observed far and wide during breeding season in Maryland this year.

In the evening, I watched the Egrets with my daughter as they came in to roost on the Anne Arundel side of Jug Bay.  They seem to come from a variety of directions, and there were 35 Greats but I did not see any other species other than Great Blue herons.

P.S. Great find today Matt! - Wish I could chase the Bell's Vireo (dipped on the first one, at Assateague) but had a grueling 13 hour day at work today and will be out of town the rest of the week.  Hope many others get to see it!

Cheers-
Jeff Shenot
Croom MD

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