From: Peter Lev To: Subject: RBA Baltimore Birdline-- 5 October 2000 Date: Friday, October 06, 2000 7:03 AM HOTLINE: Baltimore Bird Club Birdline DATE: 5 October 2000 COVERAGE: MD, DE, VA, PA, DC Compiled by Pete Webb (pwebb@bcpl.net) and posted by Peter Lev (plev@home.com) Migration continues to progress, with some species dwindling here and others building in numbers. The big Broad-winged Hawk flight of the past few weeks has dwindled to a trickle of lingering stragglers. The Fork-tailed Flycatcher seen the previous weekend has not been reported since Saturday the 23rd of September. New reports coming in were a Western Kingbird spotted at College Park Airport Tuesday Oct 3, a Yellow Rail at Huntley Meadows in the Virginia suburbs near Washington, D.C. also last Tuesday, a Whimbrel at Hart-Miller Island last Saturday, and growing numbers of sparrows including 4 Lincoln's Sparrows at the Meadowbrook Park-n-Ride at Rt 100 near Rt 29 in Howard County north of Columbia on Wednesday. Both White-throated Sparrows and Juncos have been spotted over the last week and a half at scattered locations. Clay-colored Sparrows have turned up on Assateague Island south of Ocean City on Maryland's Atlantic Coast last weekend while Marbled Godwits were seen on the mainland at Eagles Nest Campground near Ocean City. A couple of Golden Eagles were seen passing by Turkey Point in Cecil County at the north end of the Chesapeake Bay Friday Sep 29; more have been seen at Snicker's Gap in Virginia west of D.C. Last Friday Snicker's Gap hosted a flyby Swainson's Hawk, a species normally found in the western U.S. The overall numbers of individual warblers and warbler species have been declining; the peak was in mid-September a couple eeks ago, but birds are still being seen in smaller numbers. Three Connecticut Warblers were seen in one morning near Annapolis last Saturday Sep. 30. Palm warblers, both yellow and pale western morphs, have been reported at scattered locations. The West Nile Virus has continued to appear in dead crows in the Baltimore area, and reports from New York indicate that other avian species are also infected but more difficult to detect because crows are larger and turn up more often in close proximity to people where dead or dying birds can be more readily found. >From the D.C. area Voice of the Naturalist, a service of the Audubon Naturalist Society, reports have come in of 3 Anhingas seen soaring over Dameron in St. Mary's County in southern Maryland Fri. Sep 29, and a Western Tanager seen well in a Cecil County yard. Another (?) was seen briefly Wed Sep 27 in a Howard County yard. Upcoming Baltimore Bird Club trips include: OCT 7 (Sat) 7:00 a.m. HAWKWATCH AT TURKEY POINT, Elk Neck Forest. Co-sponsored with Cecil County Bird Club. Watch for migrant hawks on this peninsula that juts out into the top of the Chesapeake Bay. Stay the afternoon if the hawks are moving. Easy walking, 1/2 mile to the viewing area. Folding chairs useful. Leader there 9 am : Richard Donham. Coordinator: Pete Webb, email pwebb@bcpl.net or phone (410) 486-1217. Meet 7 am at White Marsh Mall. Take exit 67B west from I-95. Meet in lot, near a light pole, NE side of Sears. Bring Lunch, all-day trip. With the cold front passage currently forecast, there could be a pretty decent flight. OCT 8 (Sun) 8:00 a.m. CYLBURN SELF-GUIDED WALK. Meet at porch on Sunday mornings, 8:00 am, for easy birding without a designated leader. Cylburn Mansion is located off Greenspring Avenue one block south of Northern Parkway (accessible from I-83 Northern Parkway exit south of the Beltway) in Baltimore. Coordinator: Joe Lewandowski, (410) 358-7834 or ilenel@juno.com. OCT 10 (Tue) 8:00 a.m. LAKE ROLAND WALK. Lake Roland (Robert E. Lee park) is located off Falls Road, which runs parallel and east of I-83, north of Northern Parkway (a few miles south of the Beltway). The park entrance is on the east side of Falls Road, north of Lake Avenue (a few blocks north of Northern Parkway) and just south of the bridge over Jones Falls. Proceed east along the entrance drive over some speed bumps to an intersection and a pedestrian bridge over the stream just below the dam. Leader: Matilda Weiss, (410) 337-2732. Pete Webb Baltimore, MD (USA) pwebb@bcpl.net (home, after 6) pew@niroinc.com (work, M-F 830-5) For Birdeast archives, and to join, leave, or change address, see: http://listserv.arizona.edu/lsv/www/birdeast.html