The Backyard Naturalist

06/24/2026

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Amazon Prime Day is here, and it can be used to help wildlife! While shopping for great deals, you can also make a direct difference for wildlife in need.

Our Amazon Wishlist is filled with the supplies that help us care for hundreds of patients every single day, from cleaning supplies to feeding equipment, enrichment items, and basic medical care essentials.

While shopping, please consider purchasing anything from our wishlist, where it is directly sent to us! The most urgent things are listed as “Most Wanted”. Every donation, no matter the size, helps us provide a Second Chance for Maryland's native wildlife. Thank you!

Pictured is our veterinary technician and wildlife rehabilitator, Lilly, realizing that this female wood duck was ready for release after this flight test!

Wishlist link https://www.amazon.com/registries/gl/guest-view/3U5M2IWJSGYYL

06/24/2026

This coming Sunday looks like it will be a gorgeous day for a bird walk. At the time of our walk the temperatures should be in the 70's and partly sunny. We want to start this walk at 7:00 am for several reasons. First, the best birds are out early in the morning. Second, we want to try and avoid the heat of the day. And, third, Franny and I need to get back to the store before noon. This is a relatively new park having opened just a few years ago. I scouted it out last week and got 54 bird species.

Bird Walk
Sunday, June 28, 2026
7:00 AM
Royce Hanson Conservation Park
21820 Club Hollow Road,
Poolesville MD, 20837

The Royce Hanson Conservation Park is a nearly 480 acre plot created by the Legacy Open Space Project to protect the Broad Run watershed. It features unusual geology, rare plants, and abundant wildlife. Within the boundaries of the park are two fishing ponds as well as a 30 acre restoration meadow habitat supporting biodiversity, ecological health and the reestablishment of native plants and trees. In the short time this park has been open, 154 species of birds have been logged into Ebird.
We have made the start time for this bird walk earlier to avoid the heat of the day. Birds also like to avoid the heat and we are more likely to see some really great species the earlier we get out there. Make sure to bring water, bug spray, and, of course, binoculars. I have loaners for those who need them.

As usual, we want to target a few birds that we might see here that we rarely see in other locations. I think the Eastern Meadowlark and the Grasshopper Sparrow should be high on the list. Secondarily, the American Kestrel and the Worm-eating Warbler would be nice to see.

The trail is fairly flat with some hills, but nothing very challenging, Overall, the trail we will take is about 2 ½ miles long and should take us about 3 hours.

We hope to see you there. Contact Pete Givan 301-758-1420

06/21/2026

Happiest of Father’s Day to all the wonderful dads in our community!!

06/16/2026

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Grumpy face, a li’l scruffy, standing or hopping and fully feathered? Yup, that’s a fledgling. Unless they’re injured or in danger, you can usually let them be.

A fledgling is a bird who’s just left the nest. They don’t fly much at first, but this is normal. If they can stand or hop and are covered in feathers, they’re likely fine. Their parents are usually nearby foraging for food to feed them. If you’re not sure, wait and watch from a distance to see if the parents show up.

If a fledgling is in a road or other dangerous spot, it’s OK to move them to a safer place nearby but only a few feet away! A fledgling is still dependent on their parents, and the parents must be able to find them.

Every summer, we admit many dozens of healthy fledglings who were rescued by mistake. Their rescuers certainly meant well, but the consequences for that bird (not being raised for their parents) and for us (many more birds in care unnecessarily) are steep. Whenever possible, we ask the rescuers to return them where they found them and wait to see if the parents return.

**Note: Pigeons are the exception. Pigeons stay in the nest a long 4 weeks and look almost like adults when they fledge. Usually if a pigeon looks too young to be out of the nest (short wings, short tail, fuzzy head), they are.**

If you’re not sure, send us a photo or contact your local wildlife rehabber.

Your donations feed a lot of babies and fledglings this time of year! Please consider helping: 🔗 bit.ly/wbfdonate

06/16/2026

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Bring wildlife education to your school, scout troop, library, homeschool group, senior center, or community organization! Our new education department's interactive presentations explore native wildlife, wildlife rehabilitation, conservation, and how we can safely coexist with our wild neighbors.

Programs are available at your location within 50 miles of our center or, for groups of up to 16, at our facility in Clarksburg, MD.

To learn more or schedule a presentation, visit SCWC.org/Education or email [email protected]

06/15/2026

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THE BABY BIRD YOU RESCUED DID NOT NEED RESCUING

You found it hopping on the grass, fluttering, no nest in sight. It looked abandoned. You scooped it up, put it in a box, and felt like a hero. You may have just taken a healthy bird from the parents who were feeding it.

That bird is a fledgling. Leaving the nest before it can fly is not a fall — it is the plan. For two to five days a young robin, cardinal or wren lives on the ground, hopping and building its wings, while both parents keep feeding it from cover a few feet away.

You do not see the parents because YOU are the reason they are hiding. A parent will not drop down to a fledgling while a human or a dog stands over it. The moment you carry the baby off, you cut the one lifeline keeping it alive.

If it has feathers, a stubby tail and bright eyes, it is not injured — it is growing up. If it sits in a road or a driveway, lift it gently into the nearest shrub and step well back. Then do the hardest thing kindness ever asks. Walk away, and let its mother do the job she never stopped doing.

🐦 The kindest move is the empty hands.

06/15/2026

Our bird walk this morning was at Norwood Park, a local park in Bethesda, MD. We had 35 species and were treated to the Tree Swallow babies poking their heads out of the nest box begging for food. The House Wren was also feeding babies, but we were not privy to their appearance. In addition, we verified that a new House Wren nest has been started. As best as we can tell this is a different pair of wrens. We also verified a new Tree Swallow nest in a different box and like the wrens, these swallows appear to be a different pair. So, out of the 6 nest boxes we put out this spring, 4 of them have active nests. We didn't get any birds that were unusual. We did get some birds that many folks would dismiss as birds that were just passing through like the Great-crested Flycatcher which are nesting in the park, the Red-eyed Vireo also nesting in the park, and the Blue Gray Gnatcatcher also nesting in the park. It was a great start to the summer season. Pete

Little Falls Parkway - Norwood Park, Montgomery, Maryland, US
Jun 14, 2026 7:45 AM - 10:34 AM
Protocol: Traveling
1.138 mile(s)
35 species

Mourning Dove 1
Chimney Swift 3
Red-shouldered Hawk 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 2
Acadian Flycatcher 1
Great Crested Flycatcher 1
Red-eyed Vireo 1
Blue Jay 1
American Crow 1
Fish Crow 3
Carolina Chickadee 1
Tufted Titmouse 5
Tree Swallow 6
Northern Rough-winged Swallow 1
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 1
Northern House Wren 8
Carolina Wren 2
European Starling 3
Gray Catbird 9
Northern Mockingbird 2
Wood Thrush 1
American Robin 2
Cedar Waxwing 5
House Sparrow 2
House Finch 3
American Goldfinch 1
Chipping Sparrow 1
Song Sparrow 2
Eastern Towhee 1
Red-winged Blackbird 1
Common Grackle 3
Northern Cardinal 1

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S357329300

06/14/2026

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All spring, while every other bird in your yard was racing to build nests and raise families, one bright yellow bird did nothing of the kind. It waited. It's still waiting. And it has a reason.

It's the American goldfinch — and it breeds later than almost any bird on the continent. While robins and wrens are already feeding their second broods, the goldfinch holds off until the end of June and into July. It isn't lazy, and it isn't behind. It's synchronized to a plant.

Goldfinches are strict vegetarians — one of the only birds that raises its young almost entirely on seeds instead of insects. And they don't just eat the seeds of thistle, milkweed, and other downy plants — they build their nests out of the silky fluff those seedheads produce. So a goldfinch simply cannot nest until those plants go to seed in midsummer. Its whole family calendar is set by a flower's, not by the sun's.

The nest the female weaves from that down is so tight and fine it can hold water like a cup. And when a cowbird sneaks an egg into it, the cowbird chick usually starves within days — it can't survive on the all-seed diet the goldfinch feeds its own.

So while the rest of the yard empties out in late summer, the goldfinch is just getting started, raising its brood in the seedheads everyone else has written off as weeds.

🌿 What helps
Leave the "weeds." Let thistle, coneflower, black-eyed Susan, and milkweed stand and go to seed instead of deadheading them. That late, downy mess is the goldfinch's whole world — its food, and its nest itself.

It was never behind. It's just running on a different clock — the one set by the flowers.

06/11/2026

Great gifts to delight and honor our Dads within all budgets!! Stop in today!

Awarding hardworking Dads of all species for excellence in Providing, Protecting, Educating and Loving

06/11/2026

See our Fathers of the Year Award Winners in our latest newsletter:

Awarding hardworking Dads of all species for excellence in Providing, Protecting, Educating and Loving