Hi all --

Joe Hanfman posted about the Brown Booby sighting, would only add that I did
see it plunge-dive once (and then apparently remain on the water, unseen,
for some time before taking off again). We were all standing on the beach
talking, this about 11AM, & only Barry was still looking through his scope
(which should be a lesson to us all!) He interrupted our chatter with "Hey,
I've got a gannet-like bird coming in straight towards us!" It had just
appeared from nowhere -- perhaps it had been sitting on the water or perched
on a buoy out somewhere below the horizon (??). As it flew closer Joe called
out, "That's it!" The bird appeared much as Joe described, rather a dull
brown on the back and head (no white rump) -- not the uniform crisp
chocolate brown of an adult bird, more the color -- as Barry noted -- of a
Brown Pelican's back. The underside was pale up to the breast but again, not
sharp white but more a dull beige-gray. There were paler patches on the
underside of the wings which could be seen occasionally  as the bird flew.
The jizz was interesting, it looked rather "front-end-loaded" with a strong
head and bill and a rather short rear end (missing or molting tail
feathers?) Flight was distinctive, not the rather leisurely flap and glide
of a gannet, but deeper faster wingbeats without any observed gliding. It
flew low over the water, but several times flew up against the sky, back and
forth near the entrance to the ORV zone. One it dove, plunging from a height
of about 20m. The flight resembled what we had seen with other smaller
sulids  on numerous seabird cruises.  We estimate that we observed it for
(in total) about 3-4 minutes. Estimated distances 200-500m, scope at 45-60x.
Light was fairly good with misty cloud cover for part of the time.

Joe and Jane had met Mile Walsh and they were off down the ORV zone in
Mike's Jeep in hopes of relocating the Booby, which Joe had seen earlier,
when we arrived at the beach at about 9 AM. (Walked to the observation
platform on the "Life of the Dunes" trail and then out to the beach on the
obvious path). 

While they were gone we did see a couple other birds of interest. At about
9:30 AM Barry had, in the scope, a PARASITIC JAEGER flying north, fairly far
out. It was dashing along, then flew up high and harassed a Laughing Gull.
It was an intermediate phase bird.

At about 10AM a tern flew north over the surf line. In the then dull misty
light it appeared rather darkish so we initially thought "Common" but when
it passed it had obviously hugely long tail streamers and a dark bill so was
a ROSEATE. About 15 minutes later two terns passed north, one Common and the
other (further out) very white so probably also Roseate but not confirmed.

Other birds of interest were two Wilson's Storm Petrels seen by Joe after he
and Jane  rejoined us, which we were unable to pick up in the sea's glitter,
and 3-4 Western Willets on the beach. Mike and Joe had also had some
Whimbrel in the ORV zone.

After leaving Assateague we went up to OC and Skimmer Island, scoping from
the bridge. Birds of interest included one Black Skimmer (getting
increasingly thin on the ground here!), as well as five-some of terns:
Common, Least, Royal, Caspian (one, flying over the bayside shore) and a
SANDWICH which flew over calling and gave us brief side looks at its long
black bill before disappearing to the north. The Inlet was not very
interesting so we headed south.

We stopped at Castaways but high tide and lots of bathers rendered it
birdless. Truitt's Landing had an astonishing number of egrets, most
interesting was one Tri-colored Heron, an immature Little Blue, as well as
an odd small white egret with a single short blunt (broken?) head plume, a
long slightly off-black bill (longer than adjacent Snowies and with a slight
droop towards tip), obvious bright yellow lores, blackish but not black legs
with greenish cast and paler "ankles", yellow feet. A very strange admixture
of traits, ain't going to try to put a name on this critter! Sorry no photo,
as we worked closer it flew with and was lost amongst the scores of other
white egrets perched in the trees. Otherwise nothing of particular note
though we added Forster's to our tern list for the day.

Gail Mackiernan & Barry Cooper
Colesville, MD