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Soldiers Delight Conservation, Inc.
c/o Lynell Tobler, Vice President
10012 Lyons Mill Road
Owings Mills, Maryland 21117 USA
410-922-3044
soldiersdelight@gmail.com

www.soldiersdelight.org
Last Revised: 21 February 2011
© 2011 SDCI		 Preserving the Natural and Cultural Heritage
  1. The Seasons of Birding at Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area, by Keith Eric Costley
     
  2. Birding Tips, by Keith Eric Costley
     
  3. Butterflies of Soldiers Delight NEA, by Richard H. Smith
     
  4. Butterflies at Soldiers Delight, by Bob Ringler and others
     
  5. Wildflowers of Soldiers Delight, by various contributors
The Seasons of Birding at Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area
by Keith Eric Costley

Each season, in turn, offers great birding at Soldier's Delight NEA. Visiting throughout the year offers an opportunity to understand the role that this rare and wonderful habitat plays in annual bird movements.

Winter
The Sparrows and Woodpeckers are the highlights of winter birding at Soldiers Delight. Seven species of tree-clinging birds that winter at SD are White -breasted and Red-breasted Nuthatches, Downy, Hairy, Pileated and Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Northern Flicker, and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Red-breasted Nuthatches are likely to be found in conifers, while the White-breasted are often in broadleaf trees. Walking through the leafless broadleaf forest will present an opportunity to see woodpeckers. The American Tree, Field, Fox, Savannah, Song, Swamp, White-crowned, and White-throated Sparrows are regular visitors during this season. In January look for American Tree Sparrows in the open areas around the star-gazing field. The other sparrows can be found throughout the park all winter.

Spring
In May, Soldier's Delight comes alive with the songs of birds in colorful breeding plumage. The male Scarlet Tanager, a brilliant red bird with black wings, can be found around every corner. Eastern Bluebirds and Indigo Buntings show-off vibrant blue hues in the open areas along open trails. Warblers and other spring migrants can be found in the broadleaf and scrub pine forest around the nature center, and along the hiking trails.

Summer
Soldiers Delight's unique habitat has attracted over 67 breeding bird species. Summer specialties include: the Whip-poor-will - that can be heard calling throughout the evening hours; Eastern Bluebird - in open areas around the park, Summer Tanager - found in open areas on the edge of the forests; Scarlet Tanager and Hooded Warbler - in the secluded broadleaf forest; Pine Warbler - in scrub pines; and Yellow-breasted Chat - in or around dense thickets. Baltimore Orioles can be found in tall broadleaf trees along the forest edge. Breeding species can be found feeding young in June, July and August.

Fall
September is a very busy month for birding Soldiers Delight. Neo-tropical fall migrants can be found in the broadleaf forest around the nature center, and along the hiking trails. From the overlook on Deer Park Road, walk West on the White trail when looking for Warblers. In September look for roosting Broad-winged Hawks in the forest on the East side of Deerpark Road - they take flight just after 10 a.m. and can gather by the hundreds before flying South. Migratory Sparrows arrive in numbers in October, and can be found in the forest as well as the open areas.

Keith Eric Costley is a Field Trip Leader for the Baltimore Bird Club and has been birding at Soldiers Delight for sixteen years. As a field volunteer working on the Maryland/DC Breeding Bird Atlas Project for the Maryland Ornithological Society, he documented the breeding status of the species found at Soldiers Delight and adjacent areas of Baltimore County (2002-2006).
 
Birding Tips
by Keith Eric Costley
  1. Get an early start. Birds are most active early in the day.
     
  2. Bring water. On a long outing you will want to stay hydrated.
     
  3. Take time to enjoy the other animals and plants. A fuller experience helps you to better understand and connect with nature.
     
  4. Have fun.
Butterflies of Soldiers Delight NEA
by Richard H. Smith

The relict prairie habitat of the serpentine barrens at Soldiers Delight supports a unique selection of butterfly species that thrive in its grassland and oak barrens and yet are either uncommon or rare in other parts of Maryland. In mid to late April the bright white and fragile Falcate Orangetip, whose caterpillars feed on the barrens Rock Cresses, abound along most woodland trails. By early May, the small and attractively bark-scalloped Eastern Pine Elfin can be found nectaring on the Field Chickweed alongside short pines; and in the bluestem grass openings, Cobweb Skippers are busily darting about and claiming perching sites. The violet-edged and white-browed Dusted Skippers appear in the same openings later in May. In late June, a persistent butterfly observer can find the rare and Maryland Endangered Edwards' Hairstreak perching on low oaks along the Serpentine Trail about one-half mile southwest of the Red Dog Lodge and at other limited spots around the barrens. Their larvae feed on the Bear or Scrub Oak in these locations, and they depend for their protection on tending ants that receive a honeydew reward from the caterpillar for their efforts. Throughout the summer months, the goggle-eyed Common Wood Nymph is a common sight, always observed bobbing over tall grassy fields or otherwise perching, fold-wing and amazingly camouflaged and motionless, on the lower trunks of small trees. In late summer and early fall, the barrens displays abundant patches of purplish-red blazing-stars, and these are a magnet for the many species of butterflies on the wing there at this time. This includes the spectacular Leonard's Skipper, a small but rich rust-colored fold-wing species with creamy-white spots, certainly a deserving candidate for the banner species of the barrens. Soldiers Delight is one of the few locations in Maryland where the Cobweb, Dusted, and Leonard's Skippers, whose larvae all depend solely on bluestem grasses, can be found consistently from year to year by most careful and persistent nature observers.

Richard (Dick) Smith of Columbia, MD has spent his spare time tracking butterfly species throughout Maryland since the late 1960s, and he has more recently conducted butterfly surveys for the Maryland and Delaware Natural Heritage Programs and for the National Park Service. He presents a slide program on barrens butterflies and leads butterfly hikes at Soldiers Delight every year in early May and again in early September.

Dick conducted butterfly surveys at Soldiers Delight from the late 1960s to the 1980s, and Bob Ringler of Eldersburg, MD has resumed such surveys there from the mid-1990s to the present. The attached list of butterfly species, and their occurrence times, lists those species that Bob and others have found at the barrens since the mid-1990s and therefore represents what a diligent observer who walks many of the barrens trails could probably find there at the present time. A second list, given below, lists additional historical species that Dick and others had found in earlier years at the barrens but which have not been seen there in recent years.

Visitors to the barrens are asked to contact Dick by e-mail at Richard.Smith@jhuapl.edu or at home at 410-997-7439 if they have the good fortune of observing any of the historical species listed below or any species not included on the attached list. (Also, if at all possible, please try and obtain a digital photo as a positive verification of your sighting.)

Historical Butterfly Species of Soldiers Delight
  • Checkered White
  • Little Yellow
  • Banded Hairstreak
  • Striped Hairstreak
  • Southern Hairstreak
  • Brown Elfin
  • Juniper Hairstreak
  • White M Hairstreak
  • Appalachian Brown
  • Hoary Edge
  • Dreamy Duskwing
  • Sleepy Duskywing
  • Mottled Duskywing
  • Common Sootywing
  • Clouded Skipper
  • Delaware Skipper
Butterflies at Soldiers Delight
by Bob Ringler and others
 
Pipevine Swallowtail ? 6/27
Black Swallowtail 4/21 to 5/24
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail 4/19 to 7/1 & 7/21 to 9/2
Spicebush Swallowtail 4/30 to 6/25 & 7/20 to 9/14
Cabbage White 4/11 to 10/12
Falcate Orangetip 4/11 to 5/7
Clouded Sulfur 4/21 to 6/27 & 8/2 to 10/18
Orange Sulfur 4/21 to 10/12
Sleepy Orange 4/30
American Copper 6/27 to 7/24 & 10/18
Coral Hairstreak 6/21 to 7/21
Edwards' Hairstreak 6/30 to 7/13
Eastern Pine Elfin 4/11 to 4/30
Gray Hairstreak 4/30 & 8/17 to 9/2
Red-banded Hairstreak 6/1 to 9/15
Eastern Tailed-Blue 4/11 to 10/12
Spring Azure 4/11 to 5/7
Summer Azure 5/25 to 6/8 & 7/8 to 8/17
Variegated Fritillary 4/30 & 7/21 to 7/24 & 9/2 to 10/18
Great Spangled Fritillary 6/21 to 9/2
Pearl Crescent 4/19 to 11/2
Question Mark 8/17
Eastern Comma 8/10
Mourning Cloak 4/30 & 6/24 to 6/25
American Lady 4/11 to 8/17
Painted Lady 9/2
Red Admiral 4/30 & 6/24 to 7/8
Common Buckeye 7/24 to 10/12
Red-spotted Purple 5/24 to 6/8 & 7/8 to 8/26
Viceroy 6/8 & 9/14 to 10/2
Hackberry Emperor 6/25
Northern Pearly Eye 6/24 & 8/10 to 9/2
Little Wood Satyr 6/3 to 6/8 & 6/21 to 7/22
Common Wood Nymph 6/27 to 9/14
Monarch 4/26 & & 7/24 & 9/2 to 10/18
Silver-spotted Skipper 5/26 to 7/1 & 7/24 to 9/2
Southern Cloudywing 6/24 & 9/2
Northern Cloudywing 6/3
Juvenal's Duskywing 4/19 to 5/26
Horace's Duskywing ? 7/20 to 8/10
Wild Indigo Duskywing 8/26 to 10/12
Common Checkered-Skipper 9/2
Swarthy Skipper 6/16 to 7/1 & 8/2 to 10/12
Least Skipper 6/8 to 10/2
Leonard's Skipper 8/26 to 10/2
Cobweb Skipper 4/26 to 5/25
Peck's Skipper 6/8 to 6/16 & 8/2 to 9/2
Tawny-edged Skipper 6/16 & 8/10 to 9/2
Crossline Skipper 6/3 to 6/24 & 8/26
Northern Broken-Dash 6/25
Little Glassywing 6/21 to 7/13
Sachem 8/26 to 10/12
Hobomok Skipper 5/24 to 5/26
Zabulon Skipper 6/24 to 6/25 & 8/8 to 9/2
Dun Skipper 6/24 to 7/1 & 9/13
Dusted Skipper 5/19 to 6/24
Common Roadside Skipper 5/26 to 6/16

Wildflowers of Soldiers Delight
by various contributors

Wildflowers of Soldiers Delight. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

Links on the web site include:
  • Woody Plants of Soldiers Delight
  • Graminoids of Soldiers Delight
  • Ferns of Soldiers Delight
  • Lichens of Soldiers Delight
  • Lichens of Maryland