First, I want to thank Rob Hilton for posting my sighting of a CAVE SWALLOW
on Assateague yesterday (Sat, 12/11).  Here are a few more details on the
sighting:

I was birding with a friend from South Dakota, and we had spent much of the
morning at Bayside Campground and doing a seawatch at the National Seashore.
There had been a steady southerly breeze all morning (est. 5-10 mph most of
the morning, and then picking up to a 10+ by late morning).  We had passed
through a front with rain on our drive to the coast earlier in the morning,
but it was mostly blue skies on the coast and high clouds (cirrus, I
believe).  I presume that these conditions would help funnel landbirds up
the coast.  But in spite of that, Bayside was pretty quiet; just the usual
cast of characters (YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS, RUDY-CROWNED KINGLET, DARK-EYED
JUNCO).  On the seawatch there was a steady flow of COMMON & RED-THROATED
LOONS flying north, and the young BROWN PELICAN was also flying north.  The
SURF (and a few BLACK) SCOTERS were all flying south though.

At about 11:15 (minor correction to Rob's post) we decided to head to OC
inlet, so we got in the car and had just left the parking lot by the ranger
station when I saw the swallow come flying in from the bay side.  It was
immediately apparent that it was a swallow of some sort, and within seconds
(which is all the sighting lasted) I was able to see that it was clearly
light buffy below, all the way through the flanks, which was visible when
the bird banked up in front of us, did a 180, showed a buffy rump, and then
headed back the way it came in.  And that was it.  We immediately jumped out
of the car and searched the area, but it was fruitless.  We then drove back
to Bayside Campground, catching a glimpse of a swallow, sp. flying over the
marsh on the north side of the campground, but didn't see any other swallows
after that.  Then we cruised up the main road, scanning the whole time, but
again, we didn't see anything.

Other birds of interest seen over the course of the day were 1 COMMON EIDER
off the tip of the north jetty at OC, and 6 GREAT CORMORANTS at Indian River
Inlet.  There were numbers of BONAPARTE'S GULLS at Indian River too, but we
couldn't find anything rare with them.

Good birding,

Paul Pisano

Arlington, VA