edm@vrdxhq.verdix.com (Ed Matthews) (10/09/90)
How gracious of my employer to give me a three day weekend! I would normally have been at Chincoteague, but we`re a little early yet for most of the winter birds. What's an intrepid birder to do in October but go hawk watching? So the wife and I went to Washington Monument State Park in Washington County, Maryland, a favorite among DC locals. (I know, I know, I can hear you now "sheesh, three day weekend, woulda gone to Hawk Mountain" -- logistics problems) We got there about 10 am and the locals (It's an hour and a half from my house) had already been there a while and reported nothing. Of course as soon as I climbed up the tower, I spotted a red tail winging by, low into the 15 mph SW wind. I suspect that they were too busy talking to notice that the birds were coming in way down in the valley just above the trees. About 45 minutes later, the wind died to about 5 mph and the birds started coming in high and circling. We stayed about and hour and a half and the two most memorable sights were 1) a pair of sharpies that flew by and circled back at eye-level (we're up 50 feet on a tower on a mountain top) so close that we could see every field mark without glasses and 2) when a red tail, black vulture, sharpie, and harrier were all stacked up riding the same thermal like airplanes waiting to land. The sharpie kept pestering the vulture. Another nice sight was a flock of a dozen or more Eastern Bluebirds going south through the valley. The sun was above and behind us, so the birds were an exquisite blue against the green trees. The counts were from 10:00 to 11:30: 22 Sharp Shinned, 3 Red Tail, 2 Northern Harrier, 1 Broad Wing, 8 Black Vultures, 1 Turkey Vulture, 12 Eastern Bluebirds, 3 White-Breasted Nuthatches, 2 Red-Bellied Woodpeckers, and 5 Monarch Butterflies :) and a partridge in a pear tree :). Also 1 unknown Buteo and 2 unknown Accipiters. The rest of the weekend I spent in local parks along the Potomac hoping for that last warbler on migration. Due to the ineptitude of Congress, I arrived at one of my favorite warbler spots, Great Falls National Park, only to find the gates locked, ostensibly because there was no money to pay the rangers. So no big deal, I went upstream about a mile to the adjoining county park and hiked back down to my warbler spot. Of course, it was long after 9 am when I got there (after a 90 minute hike) and nothing was to be seen. Now obviously if it took me 90 minutes to hike a mile, I must have seen something worthwhile. I saw my first pair of Hermit Thrushes this season -- one almost speared me with its beak as it came shooting down the path towards me. An odd sighting was a Water Pipit on a mud flat along the river, a most unusual migrant for this area. A pair of Pied-Billed Grebes were feeding out on the river just above the dam, diving under facing upstream and reappearing down stream, only to swim back upstream and do it again. Got to within twenty feet of a female Pileated Woodpecker; oodles of downies doing their acrobatics. A return visit to the river yesterday yielded a large osprey which was chased off its perch by a pesky crow, a Great Blue Heron (not that there's anything unusual about that, but I just love to watch them), yet another Hermit Thrush, and a huge Red Shouldered Hawk. Moving into the uplands above the river in search of Turkeys didn't yield any, but I did find tens of Rufous- Sided Towhees (normally hard to find) and lots of intriguing little grey jobs that wouldn't hold still long enough to even get an idea what they were -- Kinglet to Chickadee size and I could swear I saw a black mask on one, but who knows. Happy Birding! PS - Stay tuned for my report from England and Ireland. I'm still going through my field notes, but it looks like 60+ lifers from that trip. :) -- Ed Matthews edm@verdix.com Verdix Corporation Headquarters (703) 378-7600 Chantilly, Virginia