Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 11:21:18 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Off-topic Delaware big day MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Delaware Big Day, Friday, May 17, 2002. Howard Brokaw (85), David Cutler (c. 75; organizer), Carl Perry (45) and myself (61). Some of our competitors refer to us, affectionately (I think) as the "Has-beens". 525 miles by car. 23 hours. 192 species (preliminary, unofficial total determined in our exhaustion towards the end of the day). We bird central Delaware in hours of darkness, the north in the morning, the south in the afternoon. Dave and Carl each spend 5 or so days scouting every year. Howard scouts also. Information generously given by many Delaware birders also helps us a lot. I am principal driver and don't scout. I don't like to scout and I also do 2 other all-nighters each May. Dave has been doing Delaware "May runs" since the mid-1940's). John Janowski could not join us this year because of jury duty. The shorebird spectacle at Port Mahon at dusk last night was the best I've ever seen there with 1,000's of birds, esp. turnstones, peep, Dunlin, Short-billed Dowitchers, plus a few Sanderlings, knots, Black-necked Stilts, and Willets but very few horseshoe crabs. It was also dead calm and the no-seeums here and at Bombay Hook were bad. At Cape Henlopen we had 2 migrating brown Merlins. Carl spotted a Golden Eagle, ad., soaring over the 2 submarine watch towers. It was all dark (and very dark) with a slight dihedral and a very hawk-like appearance albeit distant. Let me put it this way - if it had been late October at a hawk watch I would not have hesitated to record it as a Golden. My companions may have thought I was being a little "stringy" but I have had enough experience with Goldens to feel confident. Carl did study it through the scope and saw no white anywhere. Misses (all birds that have been around in the past few days in the places we went to ... always the way no matter how well you do each year): Least Bittern, Tricolored Heron, shoveler, wigeon, pheasant, King Rail, Piping Plover, woodcock, Least Tern, Cliff Swallow, Solitary Vireo, Cape May and Bay-breasted Warblers, White-crowned Sparrow. 10 heron types, 17 waterfowl (incl. 3 scoters, 2 mergansers), 10 raptors (all 3 falcons), 4 rails, 18 shorebirds (very poor for this route), 6 woodpeckers, 6 flycatchers, 5 swallows, 25 warblers, 8 sparrows. Last bird of the day was a flyover American Bittern at Bombay Hook refuge at 8:10, when the rain started. The weather was much better than predicted, although too windy at times. Mostly overcast at night and fair during the day. Winds SW variously 10-20 to calm at dusk then shifting to NW. 62-80 degrees. The overcast, windy night made for a poor night list even though it was nice and warm. Many of the best birds lately have been at "The Hook" but our luck didn't hold and when we arrived after sunset we missed everything there we "needed" - except for the Thunder Pumper. Otherwise our total of 192 or so was very good considering the poor landbird flight and our inability to find any of the scarcer shorebirds. Three times Cutler's Delaware team has gotten 201 species over the years. 2 Black Rails at Port Mahon, a peregrine at 1,000 Acre Marsh, Whimbrel at Cape Henlopen, a Black Tern and a male Common Pochard (I think it was discovered on Thurs. by the Mary Gustafson, Bruce Peterjohn, Frank Rohrbacher team. Who knows the story behind its provenance?!), a Black-billed Cuckoo at the Alfred I. DuPont Institute woods, and practically no Indigo Buntings. Critters: Some nice choruses of Green Tree Frogs. Lots of appealing little Red Fox kits at Bombay Hook. Also seen: 1 Beaver, 7 or 8 Woodchucks, a dozen or so cottontails, 3 'possums, a Raccoon, a bat, 10 deer (I missed one by a yard with Dave's Range Rover; phew!), various Gray Squirrels, a Muskrat, dolphins at Cape Henlopen, and something that sure looked like a Nutria at 1,000 Acre Marsh (where they are not supposed to be?). Best to all.-Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA 19119-1225. 215-248-4120. Please, any off-list replies to: harryarmistead@hotmail.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================