Sue Earp
Trip Leader: Sheppard, Jay
Date of Trip: Saturday, February 21, 2009
Location: Patuxent River State Park: Annapolis Rock Road
Details: After a lesson on owl pellets (see photo below), we found only the Northern Saw-whet Owl. But that did not deter some of the group, who came back at dusk (see Comments).
Number on trip: 30
Sue Earp
(Numbers of individuals are shown if they were recorded.)
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Comments:
Three of us returned to Annapolis Rock at about 5:30. We walked in
to where the woods open up enough to let you see the western
horizon (we had found a Winter Wren near here before
supper). Starting at about 6:00 we started our vigil for American
Woodcock. At about 6:10 we started hearing woodcock "peenting",
3-4 birds at first. Then the show started for real, we had several
aerial courtship displays against the western sky and multiple
low passes overhead. Conservatively there were at least a dozen
birds (saw many more sightings but no way to know how many were
repeats). As that show slowed down about 6:30 we picked up two
large birds silhouetted on the horizon flying above the deciduous
trees to the west. All three of us got on them for a brief view as
they flew off to the left (south) and out of sight.They had broad
long wings and the distinctive slow "moth-like" wing beat of
Long-eared Owls. The look was sufficient to clearly identify them;
we still were wishing they'd come back into view, but no such
luck. We finally gave up at around 7:00 PM but enjoyed the clear
night stars on way out trying to identify some of the
constellations.