Hi Everyone,

The final day of my little spring break tour (Sunday, 22 March 09) was plenty of fun and even produced a new year bird: BROWN PELICAN (1 at Pt Lookout St Pk in St Marys County).  I met George Jett in Waldorf at 7:00 am, and we birded Charles County until a little after 1:00 pm.  I then headed to St Marys County for the rest of the day.


CHARLES COUNTY

So it turns out that Charles County does have birds!  The trick is to be with a guy who knows where he's going and who is allowed to go there.  Many thanks to George Jett for giving me a proper half-day introduction to his county.  We couldn't cover the entire county in 6 hours, so I'll have to look forward to the next installment of my Charles County orientation.  Even so, the combination of George's knowledge with 6 hours of morning birding and a bit of Patuxent birding the day before, was sufficient to garner Charles top honors for the week--74 species!  A few highlights from Sunday...

Pond by St Charles Towne Center:

Ring-necked Duck--2


Port Tobacco Courthouse:

Wood Duck--1
Red-shouldered Hawk--1
Eastern Phoebe--1
Brown Thrasher--1
Chipping Sparrow--1


Popes Creek:

Greater Scaup--1
Osprey--1
Fish Crow--1


Allen's Fresh:

American Black Duck--2
Ruddy Duck--1
Bald Eagle--3
Osprey--1
Northern Harrier--1
American Kestrel--1
Killdeer--13
Wilson's Snipe--10
Forster's Tern--2
Eastern Phoebe--1
Tree Swallow--1
Horned Lark--2
Savannah Sparrow--3
Swamp Sparrow--2
Eastern Meadowlark--4


Morgantown:

Lesser Scaup--4
Bufflehead--20
Surf Scoter--2
Horned Grebe--56
Osprey--2
BONAPARTE'S GULL--4


Cobb Island:

Bufflehead--70
Long-tailed Duck--28
Surf Scoter--1
RED-THROATED LOON--1
Horned Grebe--10
NORTHERN GANNETT--48
Osprey--2


Hatton Creek Rd:

Cooper's Hawk--1
Pine Warbler--2


Finally, it was nice to see Gwen Brewer and a White-breasted Nuthatch before leaving the county.


ST MARYS COUNTY

I pulled into Point Lookout State Park and burned 45 minutes of quality daylight on a nap--it had to be done.  Whew... what a week!  Fortunately, Pt Lookout is a great place to make up for lost time.  Under 2 hours of scoping and walking yielded 43 species, including...

Tundra Swan--15
Common Goldeneye--2
Bufflehead--26
Long-tailed Duck--12
Surf Scoter--1
Red-breasted Merganser--1
Common Loon--3
Horned Grebe--3
Northern Gannett--30
Brown Pelican--1
Bald Eagle--1
Laughing Gull--2
Hairy Woodpecker--1
Eastern Phoebe--1
Fish Crow--4
Brown-headed Nuthatch--3
Ruby-crowned Kinglet--1
Brown Thrasher--1
Cedar Waxwing--26--first of the week, surprisingly!
Pine Warbler--3


I finished the day and the week at Beauvue Ponds, adding Eastern Meadowlark for St Marys and several waterfowl species:

Mute Swan--3
Canada Goose--6
Mallard--4
American Wigeon--4
Gadwall--3
Ring-necked Duck--48
REDHEAD--3


LISTING FUN--SUMMARY  (warning: stop reading now if county listing does not intrigue you, or if you are in a county listing 12-step program)

My primary goals--to have fun, to learn more about MD birds and birding locations, to bird in every county, and to get new "life" county birds and closeouts--were more than realized.  I intentionally skipped some great birding locations (Blackwater NWR, for example) in order to visit a few places that were new to me.  A goal I did not pursue was maximizing the species total for the week (that was January's project, you may recall).  Multiple "gettable" species (e.g., American White Pelican) were passed over in the interest of moving on to the next county and trying new areas.

Nonetheless, this year's effort edged out last year's by a few birds.  Last year I had 132 species during spring break compared to 137 this year.  Last year produced 1066 county birds ("ticks" if you will) for the week, whereas this year yielded 1104.  This year I closed out (saw in all 23 counties) only one species: Canada Goose.  Last year I closed out both Canada Goose and Mallard.

This year I did record the following species in 21 or 22 counties (missed counties in parentheses): Mallard (Somerset), Mourning Dove (Allegany), American Crow (Allegany and Somerset), American Robin (Calvert), European Starling (Carroll and Montgomery), Northern Cardinal (Worcester).

So why didn't I have more closeouts this year?  Two reasons, I think: (1) some of the craziness (like birding in 18 counties in 3 days and doing some extensive nocturnal birding) ultimately caused me to give short schrift to a few counties (Allegany and Somerset especially; 16 and 28 species for the week, respectively); and (2) I just took my eye off the ball from time to time.  Did I really miss Northern Cardinal in Worcester?  Or did I forget to write it down?  I must have driven by some, but since I didn't take note...

New "life" county birds were many, and I added a few "life" closeouts as well.  Before spring break, I had 2449 county birds and 19 closeouts.  I ended spring break with 2623 county birds and 25 closeouts.  174 new county birds!  My new closeouts were...

#20 Downy Woodpecker in Harford (3/14/2009)
#21 American Goldfinch in Harford (3/14/2009)
#22 House Sparrow in Harford (3/14/2009)
#23 Ring-billed Gull in Washington (3/15/2009)
#24 Song Sparrow in Washington (3/15/2009)
#25 Bufflehead in Anne Arundel (3/21/2009)

The week's many observations will eventually find their way into eBird, but for now I still owe myself a little more sleep...

Have fun,

Ron Gutberlet
Salisbury, MD