| The Washington County Bird Club is a compatible group of people who enjoy seeing birds not usually found in our back yards, observing bird behaviors, and being outdoors. We are environmentally conscious, understanding the impact environmental issues have on birds and ultimately, humans as well. Field trips are planned to satisfy all of these pursuits, as well as provide fellowship opportunities. | Officers: President: Jay Smith Vice President: Pamela Long Smith Secretary: Anna Hutzell Treasurer: Shirley Ford Director: Ann Mitchell |
| Meetings are the 4th Tuesday of the month, September-May at 7:30 PM at the Mt. Aetna Nature Center on Mt. Aetna Road east off of Maryland Route 66 near Hagerstown. Turn north on Rte. 66 off of I-70 toward Smithsburg, turn east on Mt. Aetna Road at the traffic roundabout - the nature center is less than a mile on the right. Speakers are recognized experts in their fields, and present topics such as bird identification, birding experiences, conservation issues, research projects, and reintroductory programs. Meetings are over before 9:30PM. Two of the meetings, October and January, are preceded by a pot-luck supper, where everyone brings a dish to share at 6:00PM for a time of social gathering over a meal. |
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Membership
Information
Contact: |
| CALENDAR Keep Checking for Additions or Corrections posted as they become available. |
Field
Trip: "I Love Paris in the Fall"- Sunday, September 10, 2006 |
| Overnight
Field Trip: Wed./Thurs., September 13-14, 2006 Overnight Field Trip to Jug Bay in the Patuxent River Park in Prince George's County. We'll leave Wednesday at 11:00AM from the Rte. 66 Park-N-Ride to bird in the area of the park in the afternoon. After overnighting at the Super 8 Motel in Waldorf, we are due at the Park at 6:45AM for an early morning boat trip to bird the wetlands and see the habitat restoration of native plants in the area. There is a $5 fee for the boat ride, trip is limited to 12 people. Five rooms have been blocked-off for us on reservation #70028252 at 1-800-800-8000 - call to reserve on your credit card at $100/room/night. Contact Ann at 240-420-0808 to participate & for details. |
| Fall
Bird Count: Saturday, September 16, 2006 Each year during fall and spring migration we take a statewide snapshot of the birds of Maryland. This year's Fall Count is scheduled for September 16. Get involved and have a great time! The Fall Count is conducted by volunteers who enjoy birding. You don’t need to be an expert to participate, and you can spend part, most, or all of the day out in the field - just keep track of the hours and miles you covered each day. If you can't get out, watch your own feeders. The more volunteers, the better the coverage. Here’s how to get involved: get in touch with Doris at 301-739-8907. Doris will give you details and get you an up-to-date field checklist for your tally, plus detailed guidance on how the count works. The checklist will also be available for download from the MOS web site (www.mdbirds.org). |
| September
Meeting: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 Meeting 7:30PM at the Mt. Aetna Nature Center. Bob Balestri, will present "Hopping Through the Antipodes - Birding Australia and New Zealand." |
| Hawk
Watch: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 Local Field Trip to Washington's Monument State Park Hawk Watch. Join Dave Weesner at the Monument at 9:00AM to observe and count the fall migration of raptors at Washington's Monument State Park, our birds of prey hot-spot. Counts here have been quite high in the past, and it is much closer than Hawk Mountain! Contact Dave at 301-432-7718 if you have questions. |
| Field
trip: Saturday, October 21, 2006 Local Field Trip to Ft. Frederick State Park and the Big Pool area. The diverse habitats of large, open meadows, extensive forest edge, mature forest, the C&O canal and Big Pool give us great opportunity for resident and migratory waterfowl and songbirds. Meet at 7:30AM at the Rte. 65 (Sharpsburg Pike) Park-n-Ride by the Motor vehicle Administration (MVA). Contact Ann at 240-420-0808 to participate. |
| October
Meeting & Pot Luck Supper - Tuesday, October 24, 2006 Dinner at 6:00 PM, Meeting at 7:30PM at the Mt. Aetna Nature Center. Relax with friends over a leisurely dinner before the meeting. Everyone bring a dish to share along with your own plates, napkins, dinnerware and a drink. Dinner will start at 6:00 on the first floor of the Nature Center. Following dinner and a brief business meeting 7:30 PM on the 2nd floor of the Nature Center, Gene Scarpulla will give a presentation on the restoration of Hart-Miller Island on the Chesapeake Bay in Baltimore County. |
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Owl banding: Friday, November 3,
2006 Night Field Trip: Saw-Whet Owl Banding - Lamb's Knob. This field trip is extremely weather dependent. If it is windy or raining, the owls just don't migrate through. This trip is limited to 14 people: Reservations are required. To participate, contact Anna at 301-797-8454. Meet at the Park & Ride at Alt. US40 & MD Rte. 67 by Thompson's Gas in Boonsboro at 9:15PM. Be prepared to stay until about midnight. For more information on Saw-Whet owls, check out the following links: http://www.dnr.state.md.us/wildlife/sawwhet.html http://www.owling.com/Northern_Saw-whet.htm http://animal.discovery.com/features/owlexp/dispatch/dispatch_04.html |
| November
Meeting: Tuesday,
November 28, 2006 Meeting 7:30PM - Dan Boone will be discussing the "Unintended Consequences: The Threat to Wildlife & Habitat From Siting Industrial Wind Turbines Along Appalachian Ridge Tops." http://www.windaction.org/news/ |
| Saturday,
December 2, 2006 State MOS Meeting Location TBA |
| Christmas
Count: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 Each year, we join the Audubon Society and Cornell University for the annual North American Christmas Count to find the birds that stuck around for the dead of winter here. Get involved and have a great time! The weather was beautiful in 2005, and miserably cold in 2004, but we had a blast! Like other Bird Counts, the Christmas Count is conducted by volunteers who enjoy birding. You don’t need to be an expert to participate, and you can spend part, most, or all of the day out in the field. The more volunteers, the better the coverage. Here’s how to get involved: get in touch with Dave Wesner at 301-432-7718. Dave will give you details and get you an up-to-date field checklist for your tally, plus detailed guidance on how the count works. You will team you up with other folks and assign you specific areas to cover. A checklist will also be available for download from the MOS web site (www.mdbirds.org). If you're going with Dave, you'll be out before daylight looking for owls, so a late afternoon nap may be in order! In the evening, we'll gather with the Audubon folks and others at the Mt. Aetna Nature Center at 5:00PM for a pot-luck supper and "Tally Rally", where we tally the lists of all the listers to establish our daily total. It is a great time and an important bit of research that Cornell will put to good use, and a chance to be involved in something much bigger than our local bird club. |
| Canal
Count: January ,2007 The C&O Canal Survey aims to provide a true picture of winter bird life along the 184.5 miles of the canal from Cumberland to Georgetown. We will join other MOS chapters, the Audubon Society, and other groups to survey the canal, our portion of which will be but a few miles. Call Shirley Ford at 301-241-3020 to participate - rain date TBA. |
| January
Meeting: Dinner and a Movie: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 Pot Luck Dinner at 6:00 PM, Meeting at 7:30PM at the Mt. Aetna Nature Center. Relax with friends over a leisurely dinner before the meeting. Everyone bring a dish to share along with your own plates, napkins, dinnerware and a drink. Dinner will start at 6:00 on the first floor of the Nature Center. Following dinner, a brief business meeting will begin at 7:30 PM on the 2nd floor of the Nature Center, and the film, "Flying Casanovas", or "Seduction Through Construction: How male Bower birds use astounding structures to attract a mate will be shown afterwards. When a European naturalist first found small thatched huts in the rain forest of New Guinea in the late 19th century, he thought they were homes of an unknown tribe of pygmies. In front of each entrance, there was a neat lawn of moss flanked by decorative beds of pink blossom, orange fruits, and shining beetle wings. In fact, the builders were not people but a species of bowerbird. In "Flying Casanovas," host David Attenborough leads viewers into this little-known world of avian architecture. |
| Field
trip: February, 2007 Local Field Trip: Winter Waterfowl with Bob Keedy. Bob does a great job of finding the winter birds all over the area, from Harpers Ferry to Big Pool. February can be cold, but much will be done from the cars. Meet at the Rte. 65 Park & Ride on the DMV access road. Contact Bob at 301-733-7708 to participate. |
| Great
Backyard Bird Count:
February 16-19, 2007 The Great Backyard Bird Count is an annual North American four-day event that engages bird watchers of all levels in counting birds and reporting their results to create a mid-winter snapshot of the numbers, kinds, and distribution of birds across the continent. Participants count birds for as little or as long as they wish during the four-day period and tally the highest number of birds of each species that they see at any one time. At the Great Backyard Bird Count web site, they fill out an online checklist to submit their counts. For more information, go to http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc |
| February
Meeting: February 27, 2007 Meeting 7:30PM - Oklahoma Prairie Chickens - Our own certified birding guide, Dave Weesner, will be discussing his trip to Oklahoma to see these unusual (to us) birds. |
| Saturday,
March 3, 2007 State MOS Meeting Location TBA |
| Field
Trip: Saturday, March 17, 2007 Local Field Trip Harpers Ferry area - details to follow. |
| March
Meeting: Tuesday, March 27, 2007 Meeting 7:30PM - Speaker TBA |
| Dinner
Delight and Birds of the Night: April, 2007 This has always been an exciting and often productive trip. Dinner at 5:00PM at the Windy Hill Restaurant on Md Rte. 68. Exit I-70 At MD Rte. 68 East towards Williamsport - Windy Hill is on the Left on the windy hill. For the Field Trip, meet at the Blair's Valley Boat Ramp at 6:30PM. Contact Dave Weesner at 301-432-7718 to participate. |
| Field
Trip: April TBA, 2007 Field Trip to Bear Branch Nature Center & Hashawha Environmental Center near Westminster to see migrating birds - Call Shirley at 301-241-3020 to participate. |
| April
Meeting: April 24, 2007 Meeting 7:30PM - Warbler Identification Workshop. This is a shortened version of the extremely popular and well received workshop at the 2006 MOS Conference at Rocky Gap. It is extremely informative and interesting. |
| Virginia
Field Trip: Saturday, April 28, 2007 Field Trip to the 700 acre Blandy Experimental Farm in Boyce, Virginia, not far from Winchester. It is also the home of the Virginia State Arboretum. http://www.virginia.edu/blandy Contact Ann (our own migratory bird) at 240-420-0808 to participate. |
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Sideling Hill Field Trip: May TBA, 2007 Look for spring warblers among other migrants on this usually highly productive field trip. We usually start by sprinting up to the top of Sideling Hill and working our down to Clearspring through Woodmont. Meet at the Rte. 65 Park & Ride at the DMV access road at 6:00AM. |
| May
Count: Saturday, May 12, 2007 Each year during spring migration we take a statewide snapshot of the birds of Maryland. This year the May Count, a 24-hour effort held on the second Saturday of the month, is scheduled for May 12. Get involved and have a great time! Like Christmas Bird Counts, the May Count is conducted by volunteers who enjoy birding. You don’t need to be an expert to participate, and you can spend part, most, or all of the day out in the field. The more volunteers, the better the coverage. The checklist is available for download from the MOS web site (www.mdbirds.org). Then get set for a day of non-stop birding fun! |
| May
Meeting: Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Meeting 7:30PM - Speaker TBA |
| Picnic:
Sunday, June 24, 2007 Meet at 4:00PM Sunday afternoon. Bring a lawn chair, your own cup, plate, utensils & drink and a dish to share. We'll look for summer birds after dinner. Take Old National Pike (Alt. US 40) through Boonsboro to the top of the mountain. Turn Left onto Washington Monument Road, (Directly across from The Old South Mountain Inn), which leads directly into the park in a little over a mile. |
| State
MOS Conference: July 27-29, 2007 Maryland Ornithological Society Conference in Wicomico County at Salisbury University. This is an outstanding opportunity to do a lot of intense birding in 2-3 days and see birds not native to our area. It will be hot, as it is mid-summer, but the shore birds should be plentiful. Are you a beginning birder? There's no better place to learn than at a conference, where you are immersed in birding. It is great fun, excellent birding, good food, good times, being with and meeting new friends. Keynote speaker on Friday evening will be renowned author and naturalist Scott Weidensaul. Look for the conference brochure in the mail this April or at the MOS web site www.mdbirds.org. |
| Picnic:
Sunday, August 26, 2007 Meet at 4:00PM Sunday afternoon. Bring a lawn chair, your own cup, plate, utensils & drink and a dish to share. We'll look for summer birds in this beautiful setting after dinner. Take US 40 West past Clearspring to Pectonville Road or take I-70 West to Exit 12. Go 1.4 miles on MD Rte. 56 West, then turn left on US40 and go 3 miles & turn right onto Pectonville Road. Camp Harding park is 1 mile on the right. |
