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Subject:

Assateague ORV/OSV Zone; one good tern...

From:

Stanley Arnold

Reply-To:

Stanley Arnold

Date:

Thu, 9 Jul 2009 20:43:34 -0400

...deserves another?

Hi Folks,

Just back from picking up my nephew, Max Kuhle, in Indianapolis on Tuesday, 
we stayed local on Wednesday, visiting Swan Creek and some other 
close-to-home spots.  We were going to go kayaking today, but I looked at 
the 10-day forecast and saw that the best opportunity for winds out of the 
east would likely be today, and this would be my best shot for seabirds from 
Assateague.  Max was really antsy to do the beach, so he and I left the 
house at 3 a.m. and were letting air out of the tires at the 
Over-Sand-Vehicle zone entrance at 6.

I was here not much more than a week ago with Kevin Graff, where we found 
the zone closed to vehicles at about the half-way point, but we were still 
able to hike past the barriers to Fox Hill Level (which was quite flooded). 
Today, the zone was still closed at this point, but we no longer had the 
option of hiking past the barriers; it was totally closed.  There was one 
nest of Piping Plovers in this area that had two fledglings that needed an 
unimpeded run at the beach.  We parked near the no-entry signs, not far from 
the 23.4 km crossover, and I commenced a 5.5 hour sea-watch, while Max 
reveled in the sand and waves, being completely entertained for the 
duration.

After an hour or so into the sea watch, a National Park Service vehicle 
drove up, and I recognized the driver--it was Nat Donkin, the Piping Plover 
census taker, who I met a couple weeks ago on North Assateague.  One of his 
jobs, besides doing the Plover research, is to talk to folks along the 
beach, and he and I were probably engaged in conversation for a good 45 
minutes.  We talked about a variety of subjects, but mostly birds.  During 
this time, a SANDWICH TERN flew by heading north, with the yellow tip to the 
dark bill easily seen on this bird that was noticably heftier than the many 
sterna terns flying by.  At about 8:15 a.m. I was looking in the binoculars 
southward at a tern I was trying to identify as it headed our way.   Before 
I could make an ID, Nat called out ROSEATE TERN!  I put down my bins, then 
got them back on the bird as it passed, where I could now see the LONG tail, 
dark bill, dark cap, and pale color.  I looked at Nat, thinking "wow, that 
was a bold call" but it turns out that Nat had banded Roseate Terns on three 
islands off of Cape Cod, where the world's greatest nesting concentration of 
these birds exists.  What surprised Nat is that it was here in July, but 
this bird was on my radar as I had spent some time poring over the ebird bar 
graphs, noting that Roseates are found in Maryland almost continuously from 
April to September, though in very very low numbers.

At about 10 a.m., Mike Walsh showed up, and joined me for the next hour and 
a half.  He certainly had a charmed day, because at 10:15 a ROSEATE TERN 
flew by at fairly close range, this time heading south, from which I 
ascertained that it was the same as the earlier bird.  It ended up circling 
and landing along the beach in the restiricted area, just out of view behind 
a mound in the terrain.  This time I got a better view of the bird than 
earlier, and I swear it looked like a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher with the 
streamers hanging off the tail end.  After some more scoping, Mike picked up 
another SANDWICH TERN heading in the same direction as the earlier one, so 
likely a different bird.

Around 11:30, Mike was packing up to leave, and had just gotten his scope in 
the car when I screamed at him to get back to the beach with his scope.  I 
was looking north at a brown bird with very pointed wings heading south in 
our direction, and flying with very powerful wingbeats, and only 
occasionally taking short glides.  Within seconds Mike was once again set up 
beside me, and we watched this rather stout-bodied bird fly by, both coming 
to the same conclusion that we were watching a POMARINE JAEGER.  After 
passing us by, we were quite thrilled to watch the jaeger engage a Royal 
Tern, harranguing it for a good 20 seconds before breaking off the attack, 
and continuing its journey to the south.  The best we could make of this 
bird's plumage is that it was an intermediate morph non-breeding adult.

During the day, the winds remained more out of the north than out of the 
east, and I only managed a glimpse of a very distant SHEARWATER (sp) after 
Mike left, but I only had a silhouette, and could see no detail.  Also, at 
some point during the morning I spotted a single WILSON'S STORM-PETREL.

Max and I left the zone shortly after noon, and stopped next at Castaways 
(Eagle's Nest Campground to the old timers).  Here I found what I was 
looking for:  a GULL-BILLED TERN sitting contently on one of the sandbars. 
I was also able to scope three PIPING PLOVERs on the island, but nothing 
else of note.  Our last stop was at Skimmer Island where we ran into John 
Thomas, and scoped for 15-20 minutes, not finding anything notable such as 
Fred Shaffer's cormorant or the like.

So, yet another great adventure on Assateague, a place that is having more 
and more appeal to me, for obvious reasons.

Good (sea)birding,

Stan Arnold
Ferndale (AA Co.)