Hi Everybody,

The third annual Eastern Neck Narrows Big Sit on Sunday (10 Oct) is now history. For some reason our total improved for a second consecutive year from 60 last October to 62 this time around. Is it really possible to get better at sitting around looking for birds to come close enough to reveal their identity?

I am sure the fishermen on the Narrows bridge and the passing refuge visitors were bemused by our use of the stone pillar holding up the refuge entrance sign to obtain a loftier perspective in viewing the Narrows (Nancy and I split duty as signpost sitters). The undisputed highlight of the affair was a migrating juvenile NORTHERN GOSHAWK that clearly outsized the Cooper's Hawk with whom it shared a thermal at 10:00 AM. Other notable birds from our (admittedly limited by mobility) perspective were Snowy and Great Egrets; two juvenile Black-crowned Night-Herons that obligingly roosted in plain view all of the time we were on "duty" (6:30 AM to 4:20 PM); a Greater Scaup; 7 Royal and 17 Caspian Terns with begging "independent" juveniles (atlassers take note: young terns do this even hundreds of miles from their natal colony); two flyby Dunlin; an Eastern Meadowlark flying over the marsh to the south; and a flock of 8 Tufted Titmice (a rarity with all that salt marsh surrounding our spot, note we had no cardinals or chickadees for the day). I would say our biggest misses were Northern Harrier and Eastern Bluebird. Visiting observers reported a good bird from Tubby Cove, sadly far out of our reach as sitters for a day - an AMERICAN BITTERN visible from the observation tower.  A Big Sit disabuses one of the notion of a stable selection of birds at one place  - in spite of the night-heron's fidelity, they just move around when our eyes don't work so well. Any time we move through an area and tally the birds we encounter we're simply taking a brief sample of what is there at that time. 

Our list:
Canada Goose; Mute Swan; American Black Duck; Mallard; Northern Pintail; Green-winged Teal; Greater Scaup; Lesser Scaup; Ruddy Duck; Double-crested Cormorant; Great Blue Heron; Great Egret; Snowy Egret; Black-crowned Night-Heron; Black Vulture; Turkey Vulture; Osprey; Bald Eagle; Sharp-shinned Hawk; Cooper's Hawk; Northern Goshawk; Red-tailed Hawk; American Kestrel; Greater Yellowlegs; Lesser Yellowlegs; Dunlin; Laughing Gull; Ring-billed Gull; Herring Gull; Great Black-backed Gull; Caspian Tern; Royal Tern; Forster's Tern; Mourning Dove; Belted Kingfisher; Red-bellied Woodpecker; Northern Flicker; Blue Jay; American Crow; Fish Crow; Horned Lark; Tree Swallow; Tufted Titmouse; Carolina Wren; Marsh Wren; Ruby-crowned Kinglet; American Robin; Northern Mockingbird; European Starling; Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warbler; (Western) Palm Warbler; Common Yellowthroat; Eastern Towhee; Savannah Sparrow; Song Sparrow; Swamp Sparrow; Dark-eyed (Slate-colored) Junco; Red-winged Blackbird; Eastern Meadowlark; Common Grackle; House Finch; American Goldfinch.

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")