Hi Everybody,

Nancy, Ian and I decided to make an expedition to Elk Neck in Cecil County yesterday (3 October). We hoped for something extraordinary with the overnight clearing. It turned out the clouds did not disperse on the Upper Eastern Shore until around noon and there were rather few nocturnal passerine migrants around. However, diurnal migrants did respond to the change of air and wind direction. 

The biggest show was put on by Red-headed Woodpeckers. We were at Turkey Point from ca. 11:00 AM to 3:30 PM and we saw at least 30 of these flashy woodpeckers heading down the point. Given comments by hawk counter Parke John and Chris Starling (who I met leaving after his morning of family birding) there probably were between 40 and 50 Red-headeds at Turkey Pt. for the day. Along with the Red-headed Woodpeckers came a lot of Red-bellied Woodpeckers apparently in the process of dispersing southward, it is hard to call a more-or-less one-way dispersal by presumably young birds a "migration". We saw over 40 Red-bellies for the day including a lot of confused birds in constant back and forth flight at the lighthouse. 

Other birds for our outing included a juvenile tundra Peregrine, lots of late-fall migrants including 2 Dark-eyed (Slate-colored) Juncos, 4 Red-breasted Nuthatches, 3 Winter Wrens, 14 Ruby-crowned and 9 Golden-crowned kinglets. The six warbler species we found were 1 Nashville, 2 Magnolia, a Black-throated Blue, a Black-throated Green, 7 Black-and-white, and 3 American Redstarts. Other neotropical migrants on their way out were 3 Eastern Wood-Pewees, 9 Red-eyed Vireos, 4 Scarlet Tanagers, and an Indigo Bunting.  'Twas a nice outing made more pleasurable by conversation with Mr. John during our time at the hawk watch attended by a feeding frenzy of green darners, black saddlebags and wandering gliders feasting on small aerial insects.

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")