There has been pretty good documentation of the effects of Ernesto on some
bird species, especially black terns, so here is a late report that will
help make for a better data set.
On Saturday morning (9/2/06) I had a call from Sue Ricciardi and Dotty
Mumford, who were trying to get to Irish Grove, but had run into water too
deep to travel. They wanted to know when low tide would be - I checked and
it was 2:30PM, so I suggested that they come back to my place for lunch and
we would take my high clearance SUV at low tide. While eating lunch, I saw
a yellowish bird chase a chickadee off the feeder and around the deck. I
thought it was a female goldfinch, but when it landed on the railing, it
proved to be a female black-throated green warbler! Sue and Dotty went out
to the deck and birded there for a while, seeing 5-6 American Redstarts, 2
Black-throated Green Warblers, 2 Black & White Warblers, a Red-eyed Vireo,
and a Worm-eating Warbler in addition to the usual suspects. We drove down
to Somerset County and when we got to the Quindocqua area, started driving
down the flooded roads. We had Marylee Ross walk in front of the vehicle
to judge the depth of the water and find the shallowest parts. Most of the
paved roads in the area were under water, but the sand roads were mostly
above water. At Irish Grove, I repaired the door, which was damaged by
someone breaking in to find food, Marylee gathered up the shingles from the
front porch roof and put them back on the roof, and Sue and Dotty cleaned
up the fire extinguisher powder that was all over the first floor, for
reasons we can't even imagine. When things were back in order, we drove
down Rumbly Point Road to the end, where we met and talked with Michael
Keating, the local representative of the Quindocqua Partnership, owners of
most of the property around ours. Their lodge at the end of the road was
burned by vandals recently. While talking with him, the tide started coming
back in, and Rumbly Point Road was disappearing quickly, so we decided it
was time to get out of there. Here is a list of birds seen on the
Sanctuary or in the surrounding area:
Double-crested Cormorant - 15
Great Blue Heron - 6
Great Egret - 4
Snowy Egret - 31
Little Blue Heron - 1
Tri-colored Heron - 1
Green Heron - 1
Turkey Vulture - 2
Am. Black Duck - 25
Blue-winged Teal - 11
Osprey - 1
Clapper Rail - 3
Greater Yellowlegs - 35
Lesser Yellowlegs - 50
Willet - 1
Semipalmated Sandpiper - 1
Least Sandpiper - 14
Pectoral Sandpiper - 1
Short-billed Dowitcher
Laughing Gull - 35
Royal Tern - 2
Forster's Tern - 2
BLACK TERN - 25 (appears to be a new species for Irish Grove)
Mourning Dove - 2
Belted Kingfisher - 2
Downy Woodpecker - 1
E. Wood-pewee - 1
White-eyed Vireo 1
Am. Crow - 5
Tree Swallow - 1
Barn Swallow - 5
Carolina Chickadee - 7
Brown-headed Nuthatch - 2
Carolina Wren - 4
Marsh Wren - 2
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher - 1
E. Bluebird - 2
European Starling - 150
Pine Warbler - 5
Prairie Warbler - 1
Common Yellowthroat - 2
Sharp-tailed Sparrow - 1 (species not determined)
Seaside Sparrow - 4
No. Cardinal - 5
Blue Grosbeak - 4
Bobolink - 3
E. Meadowlark - 1
Baltimore Oriole - 10 (small flock along woods edge)
During the course of this adventure, we ran into something that I have
never seen before - road-killed fish.
Good birding
Paul
3709 Devonshire Drive
Salisbury, MD 21804
410-572-9950
443-783-1268 (cell)
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