Snowy field birds
Eastern Shore Stamps (stamps@sea-east.com)
Wed, 10 Mar 1999 17:46:23 -0500
Went to Chincoteague for a short stop today. Along the way Gail and I left US
Rte. 13 in Pocomoke City and headed southeast. This was about 11 am. VERY
IMPRESSIVE. All fields were snow covered so birds were on the sides of the
road
- and on the road. We should have started counting immediately but numbers
wasn't our game for the day (it rarely is - sorry Jim S. and Marshall I.).
What did we see?
Black-bellied Plover 100-120
Dunlin ~10
Killdeer 200+
Horned Lark ~20
Water Pipit 200+
Common Snipe 5
Savannah Sparrow (everywhere it seemed)~100+/-
White-throated Sparrow (mobs) 500++
Junco 75-100
Song Sparrow only 1
Bluebird 15-20
Kestrel 2
Cardinal 10+
Hermit Thrush 3
Canada Goose one flock of approx. 150
Flicker 2
Mourning Dove not as many as expected 15-20
The B-b Plovers were in the middle of the road. Some where displaying and
showing agressive behavior toward another. One of the snipe was walking
down the
middle of the road. It was unsuccessful at probing for food there. The Water
Pipits were basically in one group. About 20 were along the side of the road
while the rest circled and swarmed across a small field. The Killdeer were
EVERYWHERE. Our count is likely low.
All of the above took place along a stretch of about 5 miles of road where we
only spent about 45 minutes. We should have done better for the records. We
could have had an all time high count of White-throated Sparrows, I'm sure.
There were at least two flocks with upwards of 100 birds each. A mornings
work
would have yielded many thousands. We didn't really note the juncos, but they
were not as plentiful as the White-throats.
We never got out of the car so we surely missed a lot of less common things.
Gannets - all adults - were flying fairly close along the beach at
Assateague. A
few loons were flying north but there wasn't much additional activity there.
Charlie & Gail Vaughn
1306 Frederick Avenue
Salisbury, MD 21801
stamps@sea-east.com