Hi All,

At least there was a nice warm autumnal day for today's voting. After doing our duty as citizens Nancy and I stopped for short visits at the Worton Wastewater Plant off Chinquapin Rd and at Great Oak Pd. The Worton location hosted ca. 2000 Snow Geese including (I kid you not) an albinistic bird with only a little black along the shafts of three or four primaries (who knew there were snowy Snow Geese?), and a single RICHARDSON'S CACKLING GOOSE. 

The best way for folks coming from Chestertown to get to the Worton Treatment Plant is to go north on 213 past both plazas at the outskirts of Chestertown and turn left on MD-297. Chinquapin Rd is the third left off 297 just past the Velsicol Chemical Plant on the left. The treatment plant is surrounded by a fence along the road, the best view is from the access road along the railroad tracks on the right just before the fence.

At Great Oak Pond three Bald Eagles were harassing the 5000 Snow Geese there (the Canadas paid them little mind) making for a spectacular combination of exploding black and white wings and deafening shrill honking. Once the Snows settled down we located a ROSS'S GOOSE sitting fortuitously at the near side of the flock. It was accompanied by a mate. That bird turned out to be a ROSS'S X SNOW GOOSE hybrid with an array of intermediate features. It was slightly larger than its mate, the bill was a little longer with a slightly concave culmen, a very narrow ginning patch, no bluish at the base of the bill, feathering lapping onto the sides of the bill, a bit of white on the front of the bill and some flesh pointing towards the eye in the lores. The bird had a slightly rounder head than a Snow Goose and had the neat deep neck sculpting of a Ross's. This is one of the best hybrids I have seen in a live setting. Soaring with one of the eagles and sporting about was a juvenile female PEREGRINE - not the adult male we've been seeing at Great Oak lately.

This afternoon I went to Eastern Neck to finally purchase our 2004-2005 Duck Stamp. While there I was seduced into a bout of birding. Highlights were 2 Common Loons, a sub-adult GREAT CORMORANT on a stick in the large fish pound off the Bay Butterfly Trail, a Great Egret, 4 Black-crowned Night-Herons (still hanging out at the Narrows),  a Snow Goose (uncommon at E. Neck), a WHITE-WINGED SCOTER flying by at Bogle's Wharf, my first Buffleheads of the season (10 of them), an Osprey (getting late), an American Woodcock flushed on the wooded part of the Bay Butterfly Trail,  2 latish Royal Terns (juvenile and adult), and nine sparrow species including my first Fox Sparrow of the fall. The fall colors are pretty good for hereabouts right now,  for some reason (cool nights? dry mid-late fall?) the sweet gums have more red and orange than seems usual this year.

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")