Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 01:42:29 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Marshall Iliff Subject: Record Maryland Big Day (part I - narrative) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, The below account of our record-breaking Maryland Big Day is broken into four parts, sent in five separate messages (note that there are two part IIIs...sorry). On 22 May 2002 I was joined by Matt Hafner, Jim Stasz, and Andy Farnsworth in my 4th attempt at the Maryland Big Day record, which was still 206 set twice by Michael O'Brien and his team(s) in 1996 and 1998. Any reader of MDOsprey is familiar with Matt and Jim both, but Andy Farnsworth may require some introduction. He has been my teammate on 7 competitive Big Days (2 Texas Classics and 1 World Series of Birding in NJ). Andy has been birding since age 6, has been a leader (like myself) for Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, recently completed a Masters at Clemson studying nocturnal bird migration, is currently working with National Audubon on the 2001-02 CBC issue, and is going to Cornell this fall for a PhD. We are both total Big Day addicts. Andy and I had made a previous attempt at the Maryland record 26 May 1999, finishing with 193 and some bad misses but encountering such oddities as Roseate Tern and the only western Maryland Whimbrel record (until this year), which we witnessed as a major fallout of 130+ birds in 3 flocks about Garrett County. SCOUTING Jim and Matt were this year's Eastern Shore team, and they spent Friday, 17-21 May 2002 checking the Eastern Shore spots needed to round out the coastal portion of the route. Certainly the most important bit of information they generated was the recommendation that we bird Deal Island rather than Elliott Island during the afternoon. Last year our scouting indicated that Deal had declined so much in quality, and Elliott had improved so much, that the latter outdid the former. This year, Elliott seemed worse (no teal, very few Gadwall, poor for shorebirds) than Deal (lots of Gadwall, chance at other ducks and both bitterns, easier for some other species), and so we reworked the route to do Deal instead. This indeed proved to be a key strategic move. For me this year's attempt began at 9:00 p.m. on Saturday. My Orange County, CA, flight landed at BWI airport and I was met by a friend who took me home. I packed my car immediately and was on the road by about 11:30 p.m., heading for Garrett County. I spent all day Sunday and all day Monday birding along our planned route in Garrett County trying to pin down the more unusual species and trying to luck into a few surprises. A main concentration of mine was trying to encounter some migrants, which are always vexing on the Maryland Big Days. All three days in Garrett were very cold, especially during the nights, and windy. On Sunday there was some evidence of a fallout, with Black Terns on Deep Creek Lake and Little Blue Heron and landbirds at Broadford Reservoir. A separate email summarized my most noteworthy sightings from those days. On Tuesday morning my wake up call did not come and I lost precious nocturnal scouting time, but amply made up for it in 2 more hours of extra sleep. I did a dry run of our Garrett route that morning, then scouted Washington County briefly, then popped in very quickly to see if Cap Stine Rd. (nr Frederick) had Dickcissels (it didn't, but they could have been there, it is probably too far off the route anyways). I met Jim at my house, shuffled some cars around, trailered the boat, and drove to Cambridge (Dorchester County). I met Jim there and put the boat in the water, and Jim and I battled a 10-15 mph north wind across the Bay from 5:30-8:30 (it is a 1:45 trip). We tried to scout some out of the way en route but due to chop we found very little, just a few Surf Scoters and Common Loons. All four of us convened at my dock when Jim and I pulled the boat in, we hurriedly packed the car, I grabbed a shower, and we struck west. En route to Cumberland we planned the day and listened to the new O'Brien/Evans CD-ROM, trying to bone up on some tricky nocturnal flight notes in case we were lucky enough to get a chance to hear some nocturnal migration. We arrived in Cumberland at 11:35 p.m. to hear nighthawks calling and flying around actively despite the 35 F temperature. We decided to stay with a sure thing and got coffee, hit a bathroom, and waited for the clock to turn. HIGHLIGHTS ** Certainly the rarest bird of all 214 seen was the single EARED GREBE in partial breeding or nonbreeding plumage that we saw in the Poplar Island vicinity. We had good scope looks to give Talbot County its first-ever record and Maryland a new state late date by 3 days ** Most befuddling bird award is awarded to a Royal Tern-sized sleek dark bird that was flying out the inlet just as we pulled up. I was watching the thing fly away from us as we were pulling up to park at the inlet, and I was totally befuddled as to what it might be. After watching it for a solid five seconds, it veered and banked, showing off a silvery underwing. SOOTY SHEARWATER! ** Best head rush award goes to the migrant fiesta that we had at Broadford Reservoir, Garrett County. In about 25 minutes of birding we located not only the essential, bare bones migrants such as Myrtle and Blackpoll Warblers, but also ticked off lingering stakeouts of Northern Waterthrush, Tennessee and Bay-breasted Warblers, as well as total bonus birds such as Nashville Warbler, Lincoln's Sparrow, and a total surprise Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. A Ring-necked Duck and two Hooded Mergansers on the lake hadn't been there the day before making a total of 7 code 3/code 2 birds during that time! ** The tragedy of the day was the Common Nighthawk that we got, but didn't need in Worcester. This bird was probably roosting on the warm pavement of Cedartown Rd. because the past few chilly days had him hungry and cold and tired. It was clearly not prepared for our Big Day Mobile to come speeding around the corner, and nor was I prepared for a bird to fly up in my headlights off the pavement. I'd like to say that I deftly swerved around the hapless caprimulgid... MISSES We got all code 5 birds, and missed just 4 code 4s (Northern Gannet, King Rail, White-rumped Sandpiper, Brown-headed Nuthatch, Swainson's Thrush, and Blue-winged Warbler). In thinking about the day I only feel like we had one bad miss - BROWN-HEADED NUTHATCH. The nuthatches are common on the Lower Eastern Shore and we had plenty of time to dig one out, indeed, we invested at least 30 minutes in the effort with stops in the Nassawango Creek region (4 stops) and Ocean City area (2 stops). I take full responsibility for the miss (as I do for all other misses (but note that Jim, Andy, and Matt take full credit for the 214 species that we got...)) as I decided to pass up the "lock" location at Deal Island for the species, where Michael O'Brien and company have never failed to get them on the late afternoon Deal Island runs they conduct. Oh well. Other misses were simply uncooperative birds, and perfectly excusable in my eyes. Other code 4 misses were NORTHERN GANNET (either we arrived too late in the day (7:35 p.m.) or the winds were too slack, but now for the second year in a row we have dipped on gannet while Michael O'Brien has had them in the vicinity either the day prior or the day after - Michael reports 20+ there 24 May); WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPER (our good shorebird areas didn't have them, although it is near peak migration time, I blame the Maryland DNR for not installing shorebird impoundments statewide); SWAINSON'S THRUSH (should rarely be missed on a night with any migration, but Wednesday morning was not such a night and Wednesday wasn't great either); BLUE-WINGED WARBLER (I did not have time to scout for this one in Washington County - this is the bane of many-a Big Day *********************** Marshall Iliff miliff@aol.com Irvine, CA ************************ ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================