The Queen Anne's County Youth Team, the Steiner Optic's Team Merlin,
competed in Saturday's New Jersey Audubon's 21st World Series of
Birding.  Jim Wilson, Will Covington and Ben Thiesse ID'ed 143 species
of birds in the designated 24 hour period.   They restricted their
birding to Cape May County.  On a day where the temperatures soared to
91 degrees in the afternoon, the birding proved to be especially
challenging.  Because of the weather patterns, the migrants just were
not dropping into Cape May.  However, the 2 1/2 days of intense scouting
by Jim, Ben and Will proved to the especially fruitful.  The team found
21 species of warbler's.
Mississippi Kites  showed up at The Beanery at Cape May on Wednesday.
(Seven were seen soaring together at one point.)  The Youth did see four
at one time on Wednesday, but not on the Big Day.
Needless to say, the two highlights of the trip were the purple
gallinule and the scissor tailed fly catcher.  The purple gallinule
wandered onto the grounds at the Wetland's Institute outside of Wildwood
over 3 weeks ago.  It was still roaming the gardens around the Center on
Saturday and an easy find for all teams.  The team found the scissor
tailed fly catcher at around 7:00 pm at the Meadows.
The Team's accomplishment is especially noteworthy because the winning
adult team for the Limited Geographic Area (LGA) of Cape May County
found 164 species.  This team was headed up by Michael O'Brien and
Louise Zemitis.
As always, at the WSB Morning After Breakfast, Jim, Ben and Will joined
in with everyone else in discussing how to do better next year.
Jim, Ben and Will want to thank Steiner Optics, the world's leading
manufacturer of precision binoculars, for sponsoring the Youth Team.
The Peregrine binoculars and the special Night Hunter binoculars were a
tremendous asset for the Kids.

Jim Wilson, Sr.
Designated Driver

ps:  These youth are graduates of Mr. Radcliffe's WSB Team's from
Centreville Middle School.  Mr. Radcliffe took took 2 teams to this
year's event.  He deserves the credit for developing the fine youth
birders on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  Graduate Zach Baer competed on the
Coastal Cuckoo's Youth Team that scouted and birded the entire state of
New Jersey.  Zach and his team totaled 183 species.