Hi Everyone,

On Sunday (9 Aug 2009) I did a little birding in Kent County, with brief stops in Queen Annes and Cecil as well.  Nothing extraordinary to report, but it was a fun day that produced some new county birds for me.  A few highlights (and a major lowlight) follow...

QUEEN ANNES COUNTY

Blanco Rd in northeastern Queen Annes yielded an AMERICAN REDSTART and a SCARLET TANAGER.  A tiny house with extensive lantana along the front border and a couple hummingbird feeders had 4 RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRDS in sight at once.

KENT COUNTY

Nine NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOWS were on a wire along Big Stone Rd.  Further up the road near the intersection with Walnut Tree Rd and 10 School Rd, a little pishing produced a NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH.

Cypress Branch at the Walnut Tree Rd crossing was a pitiful sight.  The bridge itself is covered in brightly painted graffiti, but this was a minor irritation compared to the garbage: a couch, a large fan, old clothes, numerous large bags, and much more--including red Christmas balls even!--had been dumped into the water on both sides of the bridge.  Particularly disturbing was seeing numerous Painted Turtles and a Northern Watersnake actually basking on the refuse.  I had nice views of a KENTUCKY WARBLER here, but they weren't nearly enough to compensate for the ugliness.  Painted Turtles basking on bags of garbage--ugh!!

Later on Bradford-Johnson Rd, over 200 TREE SWALLOWS were on the wires, and I was able to find 3 smaller BANK SWALLOWS among them.

After crossing briefly into Cecil County (see below), I returned to Kent to bird Great Oak Pond, Chesapeake Farms, and Eastern Neck NWR.  Great Oak Pond had one each of SOLITARY SANDPIPER, LESSER YELLOWLEGS, and LEAST SANDPIPER.  Also, 3 BANK SWALLOWS.  The Chesapeake Farms spot that teemed with shorebirds and hosted a Ruff during spring migration is dry now, but I did see a GRASSHOPPER SPARROW here and heard 2 more.  Ponds along the Chesapeake Farms tour road had 3 GREEN HERONS and the following shorebirds:

Killdeer--3
Solitary Sandpiper--1
Lesser Yellowlegs--1
Spotted Sandpiper--1
Least Sandpiper--2

A single MUTE SWAN is still hiding out at Eastern Neck NWR.  Other birds of note there included 2 CASPIAN TERNS and 2 ORCHARD ORIOLES.

CECIL COUNTY

Budds Landing Rd just north of the Kent County line had a flock of feeding swallows that included two BANK SWALLOWS.  A GRASSHOPPER SPARROW was also singing near the road there.

I counted gulls and terns from a single location at the large marina on the Sassafrass River (just west of Rt 213); a full canvas of the marina surely would have increased these counts, especially for Forster's Tern:

Laughing Gull--17
Ring-billed Gull--8
Forster's Tern--55


Have fun,

Ron Gutberlet
Salisbury, MD