Message:

[

Previous   Next

]

By Topic:

[

Previous   Next

]

Subject:

Cold Front = Shorebirds, Kent County 3 May, Wilson's Phalarope, etc.

From:

Walter Ellison

Reply-To:

Maryland Birds & Birding

Date:

Mon, 3 May 2004 16:41:49 -0400

Hi All,

I went out for a couple of hours this morning because I expected (and found) waterbird fallout after the passage of last nights slow-moving cold front. I targeted Great Oak Pond (because it's close and has a good track record) and the main pond at Chesapeake Farms (because it was drained last week and would have wet mudflats today).

Great Oak Pd had a crowd of swallows (including one Bank), a lone drake Ruddy Duck, American Pipit, and some shorebirds highlighted by a male WILSON'S PHALAROPE, and 19 BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS.  These attracted the attention of an adult female PEREGRINE FALCON who flushed everybody (save the Ruddy) and then went off to sit and preen in the corn field to the east.

At Chesapeake Farms there were hordes (or was it a hoard?) of shorebirds including *50* SEMIPALMATED PLOVERS, 3 Greater Yellowlegs, 75 Lesser Yellowlegs, 3 Semipalmated Sandpipers, *230* Least Sandpipers, 3 Pectoral Sandpipers, 1 Dunlin (living up to the old name of "red-backed sandpiper"), and 1 Short-billed Dowitcher. Remarkably, another adult female PEREGRINE (different helmet markings) came by and created quite a stir before soaring off to scare birds somewhere else.

A few other local highlights include a BLACK-BILLED CUCKOO heard on Buck Neck Rd on Saturday as Nancy, Ian and I helped clean up our neighborhood roads as part of our Community Associatation's Adopt a Road obligation. On Sunday Peter Mann and I pent the morning working in his MIllington-NW atlas block. We found 65 species with 28 birds receiving atlas codes. Highlights were  a Solitary Sandpiper on Gregg Neck Rd; 6 recently returned Grasshopper Sparrows, and a singing VESPER SPARROW along MD-290 just east of Wilson Pt. Rd.

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")

=======================================================================
To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to 
with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey
=======================================================================