Hi All,

Nancy, Ian and I took our recently acquired used canoe out on an atlas 
paddle up Tavern Creek in the Swan Point-SE and -CE blocks. We put in at 
Spring Cove Landing and we were out om the water for the next five 
hours. Our best bird was a male LEAST BITTERN that flew down the creek 
and into the reeds (Phragmites) and Spartina just south of the Swan 
Creek Road crossing (where the creek opens up). We also had about a 
dozen Marsh Wrens along the creek from Deep Landing opposite Gratitude 
almost up to Swan Creek Road finding one dummy nest along the way. Two 
CATTLE EGRETS flew by at one point and we had nine Green Herons. We had 
nine Least Sandpipers, all adults, a single and a flock of eight. There 
were quite a few Forster's Tern around including some juveniles, just 
one Least Tern, and the four regular gulls adorned the piers of 
Gratitude. We tried to tape or squeak-up rails at several spots along 
the way but we had no takers. The marshes are dominated by reeds, so the 
rail population is probably as small as it seems. Although the breeding 
season is beginnig to slow, there are lots of birds with young and not a 
few birds with nests out there.

Good Birding & Atlasing,

Walter Ellison
MD/DC Breeding Bird Atlas Coordinator

23460 Clarissa Rd
Chestertown, MD 21620

phone: 410-778-9568

e-mail: rossgull(AT)baybroadband.net

"Nothing is as easy as you would like it to be, and nothing is as hard 
as you might fear"