Cathy Stragar and Stephanie Mason led a walk Sunday down the C&O Canal towpath from Point of Rocks to Monocacy, rescheduled from a rainy February day, and it was worth the delay: enough sun, not too cool, calm winds. And surprisingly birdy: I had 29 species on my list, and I think that the group detected a couple more. Top birds were a resting Barred Owl (Strix varia), spotted while we went off trail to measure the circumference of a 90-year-old Silver Maple; swarms of clean white-and-black Ring-billed Gulls (Larus delawarensis) drifting over farm fields; and skeins of migrating Tundra Swans (Cygnus columbianus), extremely high in the sky, identifiable only by voice. We nearly ran the table on mid-Atlantic woodpeckers, missing only (as you might expect) the Red-headed.
TIL the broken and peeled twigs of Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum) smell (to me) like stale bittersweet chocolate.
Up and down the trail, the flowers of Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) were just starting to peep out from their shielding foliage.
Cathy pointed out winter stoneflies that were starting to emerge, and she found the single Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica) that had opened up.
At river’s edge, a venerable Silver Maple was holding on. We covered the six miles in about 6:45, which is fast for this bunch of naturalists.
The birds appear to have hit the snooze button in response to the variable weather conditions. None of the nest has hatched out yet, while three new nests have started. Ever-popular box #62 is still incubating.
Unfortunately, it appears that the nest in box #67 has been abandoned. And the predator guard for box #60 was no match for a determined Common Raccoon (Procyon lotor), who consumed the eggs in the box. Box #60 is set rather low to the ground, on the bank of the channel; we should think about raising it or otherwise repositioning it.
