Hi Everybody,

I did a little birding during meanwhiles today. I joined Nancy on a postal and transfer station run this morning with incidental stops at the John Hanson Rd Ponds and Great Oak Pond. There are still a lot of shovelers around - 100 at John Hanson Rd and 5 at Great Oak. We also had 20 Bonapartes Gulls at John Hanson, and a few Barn Swallows at both locations. There were seven Wild Turkeys in a field on the east side of Flatland Rd near the east end of Stockton Startt Rd including three displaying gobblers.

This afternoon I managed to glimpse a lone male PINE SISKIN on our tube feeder jockeying for a slot with goldfinches, Purple Finches, cardinals, and a Red-bellied Woodpecker. In the evening I took a short walk down to the landing behind our house on Mill Creek here at Chesapeake Landing. It was low tide and the Wilson's Snipe horde has now built up to *94*. I take back the name "ghost dowitcher" for snipe, because ninjas are specialists in hiding in plain sight I now think Ninja Dowitcher is a more appropriate name. Other birds at the landing included 2 Pied-billed Grebes, 2 Wood Ducks, 2 Green-winged Teal, and a completely unexpected fly-by CATTLE EGRET - my first for the neighborhood and the year. I can also report that the spring beauties are peak, the bloodroot are going by, and the cut-leaved toothwort just opened. Even under pewter skies spring progresses.

Good Birding,

Walter Ellison

23460 Clarissa Road
Chestertown, MD 21620
phone: 410-778-9568
e-mail: 

"A person who is looking for something doesn't travel very fast" - E. B. White (in "Stuart Little")

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