Last Thursday I joined Charlie Stegman of the Tri-County Bird Club to count nightjars in western Wicomico County as part of the bird blitz effort for the candidate IBA along the Nanticoke and Marshyhope drainages.  Charlie is coordinating the Nanticoke Bird Blitz. Please help out with the Bird Blitz at a candidate site near you!   For a map of candidate sites see the Maryland-DC website at: http://www.audubonmddc.org/SciCon_IBAs.html

The moon was almost full and it was perfect nightjar weather.

We started along Old Bradley Road and found:
6 Chuck-will's widow
1 Whip-poor-will

At Sharptown Road just south of Sharptown in the TNC land and the adjacent large area of young pines:
2 Chuck-will's widow
4 Whip-poor-will

Charlie had to return home at this point so I continued until 2:30am and the nightjars were going strong all the time. I headed south of Rte 50 and worked the heavily forested areas, as follows.
Taylors Trail and Hurleys Neck Road:
15 Chuck-will's widow

Atholl Rd to junction of Cherry Walk Road:
7 Chuck-will's widow
1 Whip-poor-will

Cherry Walk Road (first 2 miles only):
8 Chuck-will's widow

At this point I decided to try the souther end of the candidate IBA so I drove down Whitehaven Road and made 6 stops along the length of Head of Creek Rd:
14 Chuck-will's widow
1 Whip-poor-will

The totals for the night were:  52 Chuck-will's widows and 7 Whip-poor-wills.  The chucks far surpass the threshold number for a state-level IBA (10 pairs) and are getting close to the threshold for a continental-level IBA (80 pairs).  On this night we covered less than a quarter of suitable chuck habitat in the candidate IBA so the population likely exceeds 200 pairs.

Happy bird blitzing!

Dave

David Curson, PhD
Director of Bird Conservation,
Audubon MD-DC,
2437 Eastern Avenue,
Baltimore  MD  21224
Tel: (410) 558 2473
E-mail: