Volume 10 Number 3                                   December 1996

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CONTENTS

Amateur Slide Night!
Calendar of Events
Some Dues Are Past Due
Volunteers Sought
Club Spends Education Grant
Scholarship Deadline
Land To Be Preserved Under New Program
Johnson Family Grows
Nest Box Workshop Moves to New Location for '97
Feeder Tour Hits Fallston & Forest Hill
The Twenty-fifth Annual Rock Run Christmas Bird Count
Midwinter Bird Count
Trip Reports
Townsend's Solitaire in Nevada
HARFORD'S AVIAN VISITORS
The Hummingbird Society
HARFORD CHAPTER MOS FIELD TRIPS DECEMBER 1996 FEBRUARY 1997
NEST BOX RESERVATION FORM

The January meeting will be held on Friday, January 10, 1997, at 7:30 PM at the Churchville Presbyterian Church. Remember that in January we do not have a dinner meeting, so you do not have to send a reservation form.

Please remember our inclement weather policy: If Harford County schools are closed for the day or close one or two hours early, the meeting will be postponed one week. If schools open one or two hours late, the meeting will be held as scheduled.

*** If the meeting is postponed one week and we again have inclement weather, we will postpone it one more time. If we again have a weather problem, we will cancel the meeting. (Three strikes and you're out!) If you have questions about whether the meeting has been canceled, please listen to the radio or call one of the officers.

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In addition, a new secretary at the State level is sought for the Board of Directors. The secretary is responsible for keeping the minutes at the State Board Meetings which occur four times a year. If you think you would be interested in meeting more folks across the state in MOS and wouldn't mind keeping the minutes, call Ann Mitchell of the Nomination Committee at (301) 432-2021. A contingent of our club attends these meetings as well, and arrangements to car pool are usually made for all who attend (and sometimes includes some ancillary birdwatching also). Meetings have been regularly scheduled for Saturday mornings. Volunteers are directly responsible for the success of our club and our state organization. Getting involved can not only be fun, but rewarding as well. If you are interested in any of these positions, please consider giving these folks a call.

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Our club used $120 from this year's education grant from the state MOS to purchase bird identification posters for each high school in the county including Harford Christian and John Carroll, as well as Harford Glen Environmental Center. This year "Birds of the Garden Winter" was donated to an environmental science teacher at each school. We plan to purchase one more set "Birds of Prey" - next year and then move on to another project.

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The Environmental Land Preservation Commission recently approved applications for the commission's tax credit program for properties placed under easement for environmental protection. Two adjacent properties in Bel Air are expected to complete easements that will effectively protect about 10 wooded acres off Glenwood Road.

Another property on Walters Mill Road in Street will retire a building right from a lot on Deer Creek. Under the ELPC tax credit program, landowners can receive a tax credit of up to $500 for placing an easement with the Harford Land Trust on qualified natural or environmentally sensitive lands. For more information, call Deborah Bowers at (410) 692-9741, or the Harford County Department of Planning at (410) 638-3103.

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Four plans are available from which to choose. They are:

1.	House Wren, Prothonotary Warbler,
	Nuthatch, Chickadee, Titmouse box	$ 8
2.	Bluebird box	$ 9
3.	Kestrel, Screech-Owl box	$15
4.	Bat house	$12

Orders for boxes must be placed by Thursday, January 9. To order, fill out and mail the form on page 9 or call Randy & Diane Robertson at (410) 2739029. Included with your order, we ask that you make your check out to "Harford County MOS." After all orders and checks are in, our merry band of woodworkers will purchase the required cedar and hardware and cut out each box to the proper dimensions. If you do plan to assemble the box at the Estuary Center, please bring your own hammer and Phillips screwdriver.

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So come on out and enjoy a morning among old friends, and make some new ones. Maybe you'll even see a Pine Siskin or two!

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As the weather chills, the minds of area birders begin to fill with memories of, and strategies for, the most exiting and exhilarating local birding event of the year. That event is, of course, the Annual Rock Run Christmas Bird Count.

This, the twenty-fifth year of this special event, will take place on Sunday, Dec. 29, 1996. The Christmas Bird Count is an excellent opportunity to have fun while contributing to one of the largest scientific databases concerning bird populations. You need not be experienced to participate, in fact, many prominent ornithologists have gotten their start with the Christmas Bird Count. The count is simple! The count circle is 15 miles in diameter with center point at the Rock Run Mill in Susquehanna State Park. The circle is divided into sectors in which a group and its leader have 24 hours to count as many species and individuals as they can find. After the count, participants will, once again, descend on John and Lorna Wortman's house for homemade bread and stew to tally the birds and talk about the day's findings.

The fee per participant is $5 which is forwarded to the National Audubon Society in order to compile and publish the results.

If you are new to the count, consider this an open invitation to join us. If you're returning, begin building your enthusiasm and strategies now. Either way, write or call compiler Dave Ziolkowski Jr. ((410) 679-6765) to let him know you want to participate in this important event.

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The Harford County Midwinter Bird Count will be held Saturday, January 25, 1997. This is a countywide event that everyone can participate in. We will have our usual field observers covering the various map blocks of the county. In addition, we welcome feeder counts.

Please contact Bill Pfingsten at (410) 838-5732 if you would like to participate as a field or feeder counter. We are interested in the number of birds by species, so don't stop counting after seeing one of each species. We want to know the total population of birds for this one day.

We will provide you with a checklist. Just complete it and return it within 10 days. Please be sure to use the official check list. It makes it easier to compile the count if the birds are listed in the same order.

Feeder counters should report the greatest number of each species at any one time. Since birds return to the feeder several times a day, you don't want to add each visit to your total. Hopefully we will have good weather conditions this year and will be able to add to our species list as well as surpass that elusive 100 species total.

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After a slow start, when the sun was finally high enough to warm things up, a walk around the island produced both Red-breasted and White-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, and Downy, Hairy, Red-bellied, and Pileated Woodpeckers. Yellow-rumped Warblers and White-throated Sparrows were active and profuse, as were Tufted Titmice and Carolina Chickadees. A good, long look at the Pileated Woodpecker was definitely an exciting moment. Other highlights of that leg of the trip were a Ruby-crowned Kinglet seen feeding and flitting and numerous Belted Kingfishers.

Due to the chilly weather, our walk through the woods was quiet, and after a few unsuccessful attempts at calling out the Barred Owls, we moved up the hill where sightings of House Finches and Northern Cardinals finished our morning search.

Other species of note were the numerous Eastern Bluebirds seen in the field near the Beaver Pond and a Red-shouldered Hawk which was heard but not seen. A total of 38 species were encountered on this chilly morning trip.

Our first stop was near the Hill's Grove picnic area to specifically search for Screech-Owls. We were not able to locate any but did hear two Great Horned Owls in the distance. We then moved on to our second stop at La Grange Road where we had a chance for any of the common species in the area to appear. We were again shut out at this site but heard the faint calls of two Barred Owls to our south.

At this point we moved on to our last stop just outside the ranger's station at the Kellogg Picnic Area. We began by trying to call in Screechies but found them to again be nonresponsive. We then set out attempting to call in Barred Owls. It only took a few calls until one flew in and perched above us close enough to be seen with our naked eyes in the moonlight. We continued to call as the owl flew from tree to tree checking us out. It responded and started calling back. We could also hear two other Barred Owls in the distance, probably stirred up by the calls of our owl.

As we packed up and headed for home we felt successful, thanks in particular to our Barred Owl, whose calls we heard until we rode out of range.

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My husband, Steve Grossi, visited Red Rocks, Nevada in early November, and while hiking and rock climbing at the Red Rocks National Recreation Area, saw the Townsend's Solitaire in its natural habitat! I was very envious. He and his rock climbing instructor, an avid birder, also saw: Golden Eagle, Phainopepla, Crissal Thrasher, Gambel's Quail and Verdin. At a lake there, they saw several types of grebes.

(For those who don't remember, Debby hosted Maryland's first Townsend's Solitaire at her home last spring. - Ed)

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We start off our list this season with two reports of birds not commonly seen away from the sea coast. The first, a Great Cormorant, was spotted at Conowingo Dam on Nov 4 (RB) and the second, a Red-throated Loon, was seen on the Bush River on Nov 14 (LE). Although in seemingly low numbers, southbound waterfowl passed through the area generating some interesting reports. Some of the more interesting reports include 100 Tundra Swan over Heaps School Rd. on Nov 1 (J&LF), 1 Snow Goose in Havre de Grace on Oct 30 (DW), 2 American Wigeon at Tydings Island on Oct 2 (DW), and lastly a rare White-fronted Goose on a pond off of Harford Creamery Road (DK). The absence of the huge rafts of scaup typically present in the mouth of the Gunpowder River perplexed many local birdwatchers. Waterfowl seen at this spot on Oct 27 include 200 Lesser Scaup, 14 Canvasback, 2 Redhead and 75 Ruddy Ducks (RB). A lucky observer sighted a White-winged Scoter there on Nov 16 (DW).

Reports of migrating raptors have been few but Bald Eagle numbers at Conowingo Dam, rising from 12 on Oct 25 to 18 on Nov 4 (RB), assure us that they still came through. In case you've ever been curious to know roughly how many vultures use the roost at the dam, 135 Black Vultures and 23 Turkey Vultures were counted there on Oct 13 (RB). The last Osprey report came from Lake Mitten on Oct 4 (J&LF) and a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks was found at the Beta Shoe factory on Nov 20 (AM). The changing nature of farming has made Ring-necked Pheasants difficult to find but on Oct 24 one reporter was lucky enough to add this species to her yard list (DB)

Dunlin made several appearances on the Susquehanna within the season. Seven were found on Tydings Island on Oct 11 (DW) followed by single Dunlin at the Conowingo Dam on Oct 13 and Nov 4 (RB). Will any be present for the Christmas Count? Also at the dam winter gulls have started to increase. Six Bonaparte's Gulls were found on Oct 25 and Lesser Black-backed Gulls have increased from one on Oct 25 to 4 on Nov 10 (RB). By early October most Caspian Terns have pushed through our area but one large flock of 43 still remained at Tydings Island on Oct 2 (DW).

More often seen than heard, a Barred Owl was found calling on Nov 19 in Street (DB). Not sticking to the strategy of the previous owl, an unfortunate Great Horned Owl was seen being mobbed by both a Sharp-shinned Hawk and a flock of crows at Lake Mitten on Sep 21 (J&LF). A large flock of 135 Chimney Swifts was running a little late for typical migration when seen passing by Conowingo Dam on Oct 13 (RB). A little early was an immature Yellow-bellied Sapsucker seen at Plumb Point on Sep 24 (DW). Other individuals were reported from Emerson Heights on Oct 27 (LE) and Forest Hill on Nov 1 (HB). Some really big news was the pair of Red-headed Woodpeckers found at the Holloway Farm on Stafford Road. Although Red-headed Woodpeckers are common in some areas just north of the MD - PA line, they have been rapidly decreasing in the Northeast. They were first found on Oct 13 and have been seen storing acorns, suggesting that they will stay for the winter (LE).

Severe winters are often followed by a dive in local Carolina Wren populations because we are at the northern edge of the species range. Such is the case this year with much effort expended but only a few individuals reported (RB,LE,DB,PH). One Winter Wren was reported from Emerson Heights on Oct 27 (LE). Two songbirds on the later edge of migration include a Wood Thrush in Street on Sep 29 (DB) and a Gray Catbird at Susquehanna State Park on Oct 25 (RB). A very large flock of 30 Eastern Bluebirds was seen in Grande View (J&LF) followed by a report of a small flock exploring a hole in an old shed (DB). Bluebirds often use nesting boxes and roost boxes for winter shelter and this small flock may have been investigating for just this purpose. An unusually large flock of Cedar Waxwings was also reported from a Forest Hill backyard on Nov 2 (HB). Other interesting songbird reports included a Chipping Sparrow and a late Solitary Vireo from Emerson Heights on Nov 27 (LE), 2 Rose-breasted Grosbeaks in Street on Sep 24 (DB), and a Pine Siskin at the Conowingo Dam on Nov 1 (RB).

Ending on an interesting note, while scanning the Bush River on Nov 13 an experience birder spotted what appeared to be a Common Loon with a light colored bill (LE). The observer speculated he saw a Yellow-billed Loon but he remarked that the bird was diving too much and was too far away to make a positive ID. Testimony to all birders that identification is not always easy, even for very experienced birders, and that it's best to make a conservative judgment.

Observers: Rick Blom (RB), Harold Boling (HB), Deborah Bowers (DB), Les Eastman (LE), Jean and Larry Fry (J&LF), Pat Haacke (PH), Dennis Kirkwood (DK), Anne Mursch (AM), Dave Webb (DW)

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If you are interested, a new color brochure is available on request by email to info@hummingbird.org, or by calling (302) 369-3699, or toll-free (800) 529-3699. The brochures will also be available at the next meeting.

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_____	Number of House Wren, Prothonotary Warbler,
	Nuthatch, Chickadee, Titmouse boxes at	$ 8.00 each	= _______
_____	Number of Bluebird boxes at	$ 9.00 each	= _______
_____	Number of Kestrel, Screech-Owl boxes at	$15.00 each	= _______
_____	Number of Bat houses at	$12.00 each	= _______
		Total	= _______

                     Please make checks payable to Harford County MOS.
                     _______________________________
                         Print your name(s)

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