A Quick Word from Delaware
Don Burggraf (dburggraf@hotmail.com)
Fri, 30 Apr 1999 16:40:16 PDT
Dear MDOspreyers,
Forgive this note about non-Maryland birds. But much has been said about
the Little Egret in Delaware. I went looking for it Friday, and I thought
maybe some might be interested in its present status.
Not.
It was seen Sunday and Monday at Little Creek, but no one there knew of its
being reported since. I spent three hours there this morning getting
acquainted with every Snowy I could find. They all sported pretty little
yellow lores.
I had an enjoyable day, though. I heard three rail species (Clapper,
Virginia, and King - and the latter two species were heard both at Little
Creek and at Bombay Hook). Bombay Hook yielded a Wilson's Phalarope and
Reeve (a lifer for me! The Cecil County Bird Club had made the initial ID
this morning and wrote it on the brag sheet at the Park Headquarters. I
found an unusual bird feeding with three lesser yellowlegs in precisely the
spot stipulated at Raymond Pool. Although it was approximately the same
size as the lessers, the bird was obviously plumper, had a small head in
proportion to the rest of the body, had plain facial characteristics - a
faint eye ring, a crown only slightly darker than the face and neck - the
upper-parts color was a warm chocolate brown - in contrast to the three
grayer lessers - and its legs were yellow. The breast showed no streaking.
I could see the bird well enough so that it filled nearly half of the
field-of-view circle of my scope! I was trilled.) Someone mentioned that a
Wilson's Phalarope was also reported at Little Creek, although I must have
missed it there.
I heard what sounded like Sharp-tailed Sparrow (sp.) calls, but I wish
someone with better Sparrow skills had been along to sort them out. Plenty
of shore birds - semipalmated sandpipers and plovers, black-bellied plovers,
stilts, avocets (at Little Creek only), dunlins, dunlins, and dunlins, about
half-and-half greater and lesser yellowlegs, and dowitchers. On the way out
of Bombay Hook, as a last-minute gift from the refuge, a cattle egret was
waiting on the side of the road.
If someone else tries for the egret, Good luck. Good luck no matter where
you go!
Don Burggraf
Baltimore
dburggraf@hotmail.com
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