Sunday, September 5, 2010

Washington DC, Ohio and Pennsylvania - 11th-17th August

 American Goldfinch

Summer holidays started with a week in the US visiting Amalee's family in DC and Akron, Ohio (with a drive one-way through Pennsylvania).  Birding was very limited, but provided huge novelty value for me, having previously spent only two weeks in North America, and having seem more American birds in Cornwall than in the US! Actually I've seen far more in Latin America.

Scored AMERICAN ROBIN on the lawn of the White House (how better to start?), and was reminded of just how much wildlife is on the door step on many Americans when I saw three OSPREYS circling the Lincoln Memorial. Ohio birding was limited to garden and "from the car" but who can complain at CEDAR WAXWINGS?! On the way back to DC we stopped briefly at Shawnee State Park, Pennsylvania, where an all-to-brief foray int the forest yielded cracking views of an OVENBIRD (the first I'd seen for more than a decade).

The birding got much more serious on my last morning, when Gary Allport took me out to DC's Rockcreek Park for a pre-work bash which produced migrant BLACK-AND-WHITE and CANADA WARBLERS amongst others.

I thought DC seemed like a very liveable city, especially with Rockcreek as a local patch.

 Eastern Kingbird

2 comments:

John Malloy said...

Did you not see Ovenbird at Corkscrew Swamp? On the day we walked past each other there were ovenbirds feeding at the painted bunting feeding station! (the one on my blog sidebar was taken then I think!). Nice to see you took Sacha out too - he needs all the help he can get!! ;-)

David Gandy said...

Hi Jon, I don't remember seeing Ovenbirds at Corkscrew - think I was overwhelmed by otters! Shouldn't you be on your way to Buckton? Dave