Date: Mon, 28 May 2001 01:37:56 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "George M. Jett" Subject: Re: sightings fro the Delaware bayshore/Bombay Hook area MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Folks Gwen and I, along with many others, could not relocate the Curlew Sandpiper Sunday afternoon at Bombay Hook NWR. Maybe it was sleeping between 1 PM and 4 PM when we looked. Hopefully it will be relocated and others can enjoy this animal. Maybe our consolation prize was we did get Killdeer. Oh boy! George ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rick Sussman" To: Sent: Monday, May 28, 2001 10:32 AM Subject: [MDOSPREY] sightings fro the Delaware bayshore/Bombay Hook area > Hi all, > Nancy and I spent most of Saturday, May 26 and Sunday May 27 birding along > the Delaware bayshore and the Bombay Hook area. Higlights are as follows: > > Heavy rains all day Saturday put a damper (pun intended) on our birding on > Saturday, so we drove around between Dover and Milford searching out places > that we've never visited. Most were not productive (Milford neck/Big Stone > Beach, Bower's Beach, and Fowler Beach), so we finally headed to Slaughter > Beach and Mispillion Light where, though still heavily raining, we found the > beaches alive with both horseshoe crabs laying their eggs, and thousands of > shorebirds and gulls feasting on the provender. The majority were > Semipalmated Sandpipers, Ruddy Turnstones, and Red Knots, along with good > numbers of Laughing Gulls, Short-billed Dowitchers, and Dunlin. Along the > road to the lighthouse we saw the only species which we did not also find on > Sunday, as a very wet and dishevelled Clapper rail crossed the road in front > of us and then stood in the vegetation alongside the van, preening for at > least 20 minutes. We snapped a few shots through the scope. > > On Sunday we met another couple at Bombay Hook early, and started around the > loop, in 2 vehicles. We passed the parking lot for the Raymond Pool > observation tower, choosing instead the boardwalk trail. As we exited the > cars we were asked by another birder if we'd seen the Curlew Sandpiper, back > at Raymond pool. NO! Holy COW! So we jumped back in the vehicles and backed > up along the road and parked in the gravel lot at the ob. tower. We hurriedly > assembled our scopes and headed up the trail, passing a group of birders off > the trail in the wet areas to the left. We chose instead to go up the tower, > where we got no good views of the bird, so headed back to the spot where the > others were already assembled and viewing the bird. It was an area (not on > the main trail) very wet underfoot, but the bird (determined by one local > women to be an adult female CURLEW SANDPIPER, based on its plumage > coloration) was feeding not far off at the left-most end of Raynmond Pool > (not visible from the main loop road, only from near the observation tower). > There were 3 other birders present when we were there; the only one I > recognized was local guru Frank Rohrbacher, who actually discovered this bird > earlier in the day on Saturday. It was a really nice speciman in breeding > plumage, feeding actively at close range, the whole time we watched it. It > was the highlight of the trip. > > The rest of the "hook" was really rather average, water levels being very > high, shorebird numbers being very low. Very few Glossy Ibis present, but > good numbers of Black Skimmers on the tidal side of the marshes. Good numbers > of the regulars; most egrets/herons seen in good numbers (but only one each > of both Night-herons). More N. Flickers than I remember seeing here, and good > numbers of Marsh Wrens nest-building, singing, etc. Very few warblers > present, with only one female Black-throated Blue found. The entrance road > held good numbers of Black-bellied Plovers, feeding in the rain pools, along > with very few Semi-palmated Plovers and a few Horned Larks. > > After lunch at the picnic tables, we headed down to Slaughter beach where > numbers were much lower than Saturday for all species; same for Mispillion > Light. This could've been because of the tides and high winds, however. Port > Mahon Rd. was also rather slow and windy. We did not find anything at the > DAFB other than meadowlarks and bobwhite. > > We managed to tally 85 species; not bad considering the horrendous weather > on Saturday, and the high winds on Sunday. We managed to miss Killdeer, A. > Kestrel, most songbirds, but the horseshoe-crab egg feeding frenzy, at least > on Saturday , was certainly worth the trip! > > Maybe the Curlew Sandpiper will hang out for the whole weekend... > > > Rick Sussman > Ashton,MD > warblerick@aol.com > > ======================================================================= > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= > ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================