Val Kitchens and Jim Goehring have reported on the Upland Sandpipers
seen at a sod farm just south of Remington, Fauquier County,
yesterday morning, August 2.
Val and her party of Virginians and Helen Patton and I (from north of
the Potomac) also were looking and listening for Dickcissels in the
same vicinity, which Kurt Gaskill and Jay Keller had reported on July
31. The overgrown field opposite the turf farm at Strodes Mill Rd.
looked to us like good Dickcissel habitat, but we didn't hear or see
any there. Not that we stayed very long, as it was becoming very hot.
Just a few minutes later, as Helen and I were driving back over to
Rte. 17, we stopped by a soy-bean field along Morgansburg Rd. (653),
just north of Savannah Creek Rd. to check out an interesting looking
small bird on an overhead wire. As soon as we stepped out of the
car, we could hear and see a Dickcissel singing loudly just in front
of us. With a mess of soy beans on one side of the road and large
trees on the other, it certainly didn't look like our idea of prime
Dickcissel habitat.
As it happens we had seen a singing Dickcissel in Montgomery County,
Maryland, just last week in a location between a large turf farm and
a very large soy-bean field.
I know that Dickcissels in their stronghold in the midwest nest in
alfalfa and clover fields in addition to overgrown grass and forb
areas. Does anyone out there know whether this species is known to
nest in fields of soy beans, another low-growing crop like alfalfa and clover?
Mike Bowen
Bethesda, MD
Montgomery Bird Club, MOS
D. H. Michael Bowen (Mike)
8609 Ewing Drive
Bethesda MD 20817-3845
Tel/Fax: (301) 530-5764
e-mail: dhmbowen@xxxxxxxxx
