Hi All,

During a morning walk down to the community landing behind our house I found my first two Veeries of the spring, a one-year old and a bird that lacked buffy covert tips (thus perhaps older than one year). They were very approachable allowing me to watch them feed - three items were taken off the ground, one from a shallow pool (looked like a crane fly larva), and one from a tree trunk not four feet away from me. At the landing there was a single SEMIPALMATED PLOVER on the developing mudflat on Mill Creek, and two four-year-old Bald Eagles acting like a nascent pair. Female hummers arrived in the yard today, we've had males since the 22nd. The guys are already displaying for the gals.

The folks at Chesapeake Farms have drained the main waterfowl viewing pool off Ricaud's Branch Road and it attracted a motherlode of common shorebirds with 120 Lesser Yellowlegs, 40 Greater Yellowlegs and 28 Least Sandpipers. Also present were three Bonaparte's Gulls.

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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