Evening all,

My daughter and I made a whirlwind trip to the Ocean City area Saturday 
evening-Sunday afternoon in search of the Roseate Spoonbill and some 
others. Thanks to traffic at the Bay Bridge we couldn't start birding 
until Sunday morning, but did have some nice regulars in our campground 
Saturday evening. We headed for OC on East 54, making a stop for the 
first Life bird of the day at the Sussex Eye Center in Selbyville to see 
the Eurasian Collared Dove (treated us to some cooing as well), and 
arrived at Catch 54 at 8:15am. We looked over the marsh but couldn't 
find the ROSP anywhere, there was a selection of egrets, herons, terns, 
gulls, etc. to help keep us busy while we waited. As I was thumbing over 
a field guide I noticed some movement along the waters edge, something 
was having a quick bath. Umm..that's a... umm.. Common Moorhen! Second 
Life bird of the day, cool. It washed for about 20 seconds and scooted 
back into the marsh, the saying about right place-right time never 
seemed more accurate. After about 15 minutes an egret flew into one of 
the pine trees in the yard of the white house so I thought I'd see if 
anything interesting (night heron perhaps) was hiding in there as well. 
Hmmm.... there's a big pink bird in that tree!! Third Life bird in less 
than an hour. We went back around to the fence along the yard of the 
white house and had some nice views of the ROSP for a while. My daughter 
got a few pictures before the bird tucked it's head under a wing and 
went to sleep. It's a much less interesting bird when it's just 
sleeping. *lol* We headed up to Silver Lake to see the Black-Bellied 
Whistling Duck but had no luck. Funny that the most likely bird to see 
escaped us. We did get a Glossy Ibis over on the big half of the lake 
near the driving bridge though (year bird) so the drive wasn't a waste.

So after 26 hours, $23 for a campsite, $20 for Pizza Hut lunch, about 
$50 for gas and too much driving we returned home exhausted but very 
pleased with the trip. This was my first summer visit to OC and it 
wasn't as terrible as I had imagined. There was plenty of traffic in 
town of course but it was moving steadily and wasn't bad as long as you 
could dodge the bikinis and swim trunks walking across the road at every 
intersection. I wouldn't want to be there on a holiday weekend though, 
not even for a rare bird!

Roseate Spoonbill, photo by Dora: 
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii299/OleBuck_2008/Assorted/spoonbill.jpg

Good birding,
Chris Ordiway (& daughter Dora)
Accokeek, MD