This afternoon the we had our first birding field trip of the class to the Luther Goldman Trail at Artemesia Lake. Our guide, Don, was a professor emeritus of the University of Maryland who taught ornithology in the 1980's and before. As far as I can tell, he is the last person to have taught ornithology at UMD (and maybe in the entire DC metro area) before our class. Don gave us a brief history of the formation fo the Luther Goldman birding trail and set out to help us find some birds.
At our first stop on the trail we spotted Canada geese, Ruddy ducks, American coots, Ring-billed gull
s, mallards, and a male Ring-necked duck. Don explained that after a molting in the late summer and a short period of recovery, mallards start their courtship in fall. From our observations, at least two of the birds seemed to be paired. Don gave us some other tips for species identification, including the only diving duck with a white shoulder is the Ring-necked duck and a gull in winter spotted inland is almost certainly a ring-billed gull.
Our most exciting moment was spotting several pairs of Hooded mergansers. We also learned field markings from a very patient song sparrow and saw a mockingbird on a tall tree stump and several white-throated sparrows in the brush. We saw a little bag-shaped orchard oriole nest and a wood duck box, suggesting that this will be a good place to come back to in the spring.
Although it was sunny, the breeze was chilling and we were happy to head back to our vehicles as the sun set.
We weren't the only ones feeling the effects of the winter cold snap. This poor little opossum looked like it could use a trip south.
Even the geese departed, reminding us of the importance of tip turbulence, with their vee formation.
