MD/DE Eastern Shore 24 Jan 99
BlkVulture@aol.com
Mon, 25 Jan 1999 19:22:43 EST
Hello all,
Kurt Gaskill, Ray Carter, and I foolishly trusted weather reports while making
our plans for OC and area this weekend. It seemed that Saturday would be wet,
and Sunday would be the better day.
Went to sleep Saturday night, it was pouring in Jeffersonton. Woke at 3:30am,
still pouring. Got in the car to drive to the meeting place, Kurt's house in
Alexandria, 6am, still pouring. But we knew it would stop. Noon at the
latest.
When we left Cape Henlopen at 5:15pm, it was still raining. It never stopped
for one minute. The best we had was a couple periods of mist or light rain.
Mostly it poured. Mostly the inside of my car got wet. Our optics got wet,
we got wet.
What follows is a complete list of what one can expect on a crappy day
(weather-wise) on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Delaware.
The first destination was to stop at a couple fields in Berlin, MD, where Mr.
Iliff had some luck with larks and longsprus. This area is well described in
a previous post by Marshall, it is near the intersection of Evans Rd and
Ironshire Station Road. We were lucky to find the Lark flock, and in it were
at least 2 Lapland Longspurs. There was also a huge (10000 or more) Blackbird
flock, as well as a large shorebird flock.
The shorebirds remained on the south side of Ironshire Station Road, which was
the direction that the rain was coming from. We were only able to ID
postively about 100 Black-bellied Plover, and perhaps 40 Killdeer. The was at
least 300 of another species (or two) that were never close enough ID with wet
optics. My guess is Dunlin.
We moved on to McDonalds, where across the street was another huge flock of
blackbirds. This was a 15000 or more flock. Aside from very few starlings,
this flock was entirely grackles.
The rest of the day consisted of hitting several of the more commonly visited
spots around Ocean City, as well as traveling north to Indian River Inlet,
Silver Lake, and ultimately Cape Henlopen.
The conditions at the inlets were the same. Seas about 6-10 feet, strong wind
from the south, and the inlets were almost flat, especially Indian River. And
raining.
The following is a list of the birds we observed, with the total number for
the day. All told we saw 80+ species, which considering the conditions was
not bad.
Red-throated Loon (31)
Common Loon(13)
Pied-billed Grebe (8)
Horned Grebe (8)
Northern Gannet (30)
DC Cormorant (7)
Great Blue Heron (2)
Tri-colored Heron (1)
BC Night Heron (1)
Tundra Swan (210)
Mute Swan (2)
Snow Goose (5)
Brant (68)
Canada Goose (1300+)
Green-winged Teal (4)
Black Duck (342)
Mallard (400+)
Northern Shoveler (56)
Gadwall (12)
Am Wigeon (5)
Canvasback (950)
Redhead (30)
Ring-necked Duck (3)
Greater Scaup (62)
Lesser Scaup (4)
Common Eider (3 adult male, 1 immature male)
Harlequin Duck (6 or 7 male and 2 or 3 female)
Oldsquaw (15)
Surf Scoter (4)
dark-winged scoter sp. (30)
Common Goldeneye (1)
Bufflehead (76)
Hooded Merg (17)
RB Merg (116)
Ruddy Duck (215)
Harrier (1) Harrassing the shorebirds on Ironshire Station Rd
Kestrel (1)
Bobwhite (1)
Coot (48)
BB Plover (100)
Killdeer (50)
Oystercatcher (14)
Turnstone (11)
Purple Sandpiper (25)
Bonaparte's (60)
Ring-billeds (1000+)
Herring (1000+)
Great Black-backed (70)
Forster's Tern (10)
Rock Dove (150)
Mourning Dove (25)
Kingfisher (3)
Pileated Woodpecker (1) flew over the car on rte 50 headed down.
Horned Lark (300+)
Blue Jay (2)
Am Crow (2)
crow sp. (55)
Car. Chickadee (2)
Car. Wren (2)
GC Kinglet (1)
RC Kinglet (1)
Eastern Bluebird (2)
Mockingbird (3)
Starling (1000+)
Yellow-rumps (410)
Palm (1)
Cardinal (6)
Towhee (1)
Savannah (11)
Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed (2)
Nelson's Sharptailed (3)
Seaside (5)
Song (12)
Swamp (2)
White-throat (20)
Dark-eyed Junco (70)
Lapland Longspur (2)
Red-winged Blackbird (110)
Eastern Meadowlark (1)
Boat-tailed Grackle (20)
Common Grackle (20000+)
BH Cowbird (4)
Goldfinch (4)
Burger Kinglet (4)
Cheers,
Todd Day
Jeffersonton, VA
BlkVulture@aol.com