Well that's just GREAT!!
I spent all morning at Prime Hook NWR in Delaware, with Dickcissel, 3 male
Bobolinks, 5 singing N. Bobwhites, and pair of Black-necked Stilts
w/fledglings. No Spoonbill in sight. Luckily, the Spoonbill in Fenwick Is.
did not disappoint. The rest of the mid-day from 12:00 Noon till 4:30PM
was spent in OC, first at the Inlet where I spotted 5 Wilson's
Storm-petrels and a few Brown Pelicans. Skimmer Island and Eagle's Nest
had low numbers of terns all around, but I did see 17 PIPING PLOVERS on
one mudflat at Castaway, 3 RED KNOTS and one Black Skimmer at Skimmer
Island. Someone else clearly hogged all the goodies before I got
there......;)

Good birding,

Frode Jacobsen
Windsor Mill, MD


> ...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.)
> 
>