Hi Everybody,

As I recall it all started with a forecast of rain at 8:00 AM on Sunday in Saturday's "Weather Underground" forecast...

Yesterday's Big Sit will (we hope) be a low species diversity outlier to mark the bottom line for future Eastern Neck Big Sits. At any rate Nancy and I experienced, in order: a failed AM alarm setting; a late start getting to the site; clammy and windy conditions for much of the day; discontent on the part of son Ian; almost no diurnal migration (save one Sharp-shinned Hawk and some Tree Swallows); and a final decision to cut our losses early after it became evident we would not come close to matching our best Big Sits of the last three years. We were on site at the Tubby Cove viewing platform for 6.5 hours from 8:00 Am to 2:30 PM and saw just 46 species from our perch.

    This Big Sit was not all bad. There were ample signs that the Tubby Cove location could be the improvement we were hoping for when we selected it. For one, we had a very nice birds-eye view of the assorted waterfowl in Calfpasture Cove and the adjacent Eastern Neck Narrows. We had 10 waterfowl species, over a fifth of our total species, including 43 American Wigeon, 125 black ducks, 8 Gadwall, and 2 hen Greater Scaup. We had eagles and terns (including Royal Tern) in view all day. We saw some (but not quite enough) arboreal landbirds; this gives us hope that there could be more of these under better conditions. We also had some birding visitors who kept our spirits up, unfortunately we did not have a sign-up sheet (fearing one might gave gotten too wet). We remember Lou Nielsen from Reisterstown, but can't remember his companion's name, a Kent Club member whose name did not come up, and Janet Shields. If you note we have forgotten your name, please e-mail us so we can include your name in our report to Bird Watcher's Digest. Wait till next 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")

"Are there *ever* enough birds?" - Connie Hagar as quoted by Edwin Way Teale in "Wandering through Winter"