DC Audubon’s annual fieldtrip to the Little Bennett Regional Park in Montgomery County (MD) began with a group of enthusiastic birders meeting up with co-leaders John Beetham and Dhananjaya Katju at the ‘Kingsley Trail’ parking lot on a muggy albeit bearably cool morning. This regional park was once the home of farming communities as well as small scale industries utilizing the wealth of natural resources available to early settlers of this area.

Interesting things began happening right away as a Prairie Warbler male was heard and soon observed in the shrubby meadow at the edge of the lot. Vocalizing male Indigo Buntings added to the early summer morning sounds as they sang from relatively exposed perches. Eastern Bluebird, White-eyed Vireos, Yellow Warblers, Black-and-white Warblers, Scarlet Tanagers, and Baltimore Orioles were also sighted along the Kingsley trail, thus creating a stunning diversity of long-distance migrants that utilize this little regional park during the breeding season. A singing Eastern Wood-Peewee obliged us with a sighting of this more often heard than seen flycatcher.  

At the historical structure of the Kingsley schoolhouse, the group was treated to a pair of nesting Eastern Phoebes. Patient observation revealed a nestling and an adult was observed feeding it. A Northern Parula was also heard singing near this architectural remnant of a once thriving community that was forced to leave the area after the socio-economic impacts of the great depression.

The group then wound its way up the Purdum trail. At the crest of a hill along the trail, a singing Pine Warbler and a vocalizing Chipping Sparrow gave us a taste for the potential difficulty in separating ‘trillers’.

The final leg of the trip took participants to the northern section of the park along the closed section of Hyattstown Mill road. Sightings of a singing Louisiana Waterthrush were quickly followed by the burry song of  a Yellow-throated Vireo, also referred to as the ‘Scarlet Tanager’ of the ‘Vireo’ world. The latter afforded the group some clear views of this rather hard-to-spot bird. A lucky sighting of a singing Kentucky Warbler was a high point of the trip. One of the participants used her Ipod to playback this warbler’s song and that led to an agitated vocal and behavioral response from the real bird. It descended to almost eye level and afforded spectacular views to the gawking group. A fitting end to a very satisfying day of birding came in the form of a fleeting glimpse of dazzling red. The shape and brightness of color of the bird led to a spirited discussion and much consulting of field guides and resulted in a surprising consensus – a Summer Tanager. Efforts to draw this jewel-like denizen of open deciduous woods utilizing cutting-edge playback technology were to no avail.