Hi Everyone,

I met up with Jim Brighton, Tom Feild, John Hubbell, and Dan Small for an enjoyable day of birding on the Eastern Shore. The cool morning and the large flocks of geese left a clear impression of the rapid changing of the seasons. We started at Terrapin Nature Park at dawn, where a calling SORA made up for the lack of a passerine flight. We then headed north to Kent County where a circuit of Chestertown WWTP (John Hanson Road), Chesapeake Farms, and Great Oak Pond paid off with great birds found yesterday by Walter and Nancy Ellison and another birder referenced in Walter's post. These included RED-NECKED PHALAROPE, GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE, and ROSS'S GOOSE. We then did some hiking at Millington WMA, where we finally found a few small flocks including MAGNOLIA WARBLERs, a SCARLET TANAGER, WHITE-THROATED and SWAMP SPARROWs, and our first-of-season PURPLE FINCHes. I parted ways with everyone in the mid-afternoon and spent an hour cruising Carmichael
 Road, envisioning the Vermillion Flycatcher or Say's Phoebe that should have been perched on the nice fence rows. My prize sighting was instead my painfully overdue Queen Anne's County Merlin (insert Stasz and Hafner eye rolls here) - which made an attack run on a flock of songbirds in a sunflower patch.

Here are the abridged eBird lists:

Terrapin Nature Park, QA Co.

Wood Duck--2
American Black Duck--1
Double-crested Cormorant--24
Great Egret--1
Bald Eagle--1
SORA--1
Killdeer--1
Laughing Gull--5
Ring-billed Gull--5
Herring Gull--6
Great Black-backed Gull--15
Rock Pigeon--142
Belted Kingfisher--1
House Wren--1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet--2
American Robin--51
Gray Catbird--2
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)--11
Common Yellowthroat--1
warbler sp.--8; one flyby group. One distinctive, metallic chip just inside the woods that was tantalizing for Connecticut Warbler, but got away.
Eastern Towhee--6
Song Sparrow--4
Swamp Sparrow--1
Red-winged Blackbird--222
Non-avian: Monarch, worn Variegated Fritillary, Common Buckeye, Wooly Bear caterpillar, many Orange Sulfurs (~50), Spring Peepers.

Chestertown WWTP, Kent Co.
* Met up with Mikey Lutmerding, who had already been enjoying the Red-necked Phalarope. He said the white-fronted goose must have flown in after we got there. :)

Greater White-fronted Goose--1; found yesterday by Walter and Nancy Ellison
Snow Goose--1
Canada Goose--1280; counted by 10s
Mallard--135
Northern Shoveler--17
Northern Pintail--4
Green-winged Teal (American)--9
Lesser Scaup--3
Ruddy Duck--36
Double-crested Cormorant--4
Killdeer--1
RED-NECKED PHALAROPE--1; subadult found yesterday and reported by the Ellisons. Thanks. Awesome bird.
Laughing Gull--18
Ring-billed Gull--21
Caspian Tern--9
Horned Lark--1
Tree Swallow--130

Chesapeake Farms, Kent Co.

Snow Goose--1 blue goose
Canada Goose--2500; conservative estimate based on impression after counting 1280 at the last site.
Northern Shoveler--35
Northern Pintail--50
Green-winged Teal (American)--20
Laughing Gull--3

Great Oak Pond, Kent Co.

Snow Goose--530
ROSS'S GOOSE--1 adult, presumably the same one found yesterday by Walter and Nancy Ellison. Excellent scope views of this early first-of-season. 
CACKLING GOOSE (Richardson's)--1; first of the season for all
Canada Goose--1005
Mallard--18
Blue-winged Teal--1 drake
Green-winged Teal (American)--17
Ruddy Duck--8
Tree Swallow--4

Millington--Rte 313 Ponds, Kent Co.

Snow Goose--1

Millington WMA--Black Bottom Road, Kent Co.

Red-tailed Hawk (Eastern)--1
Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted)--1
Eastern Phoebe--2
Tree Swallow--8
Ruby-crowned Kinglet--1
Gray Catbird--1
Brown Thrasher--1
Magnolia Warbler--2
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)--9
Common Yellowthroat--4
Scarlet Tanager--1
Eastern Towhee--7
Field Sparrow--10
Song Sparrow--3
Swamp Sparrow--1
White-throated Sparrow--7
Indigo Bunting--3
Purple Finch--2; a male and a female/imm.; first of season for all of us
Non-avian: Worn Viceroys (3), Red Admiral, Checkered Skipper, Pearl Crescent, Green Frogs (3), Eastern Chipmunk (local on the Eastern Shore).

Carmichael Road, QA Co.

Cooper's Hawk--1; harassing a flock of European Starlings
Merlin--1; my Eastern Shore closeout
Laughing Gull--1
European Starling--2000; several large flocks, one leucistic individual
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)--1
Brown-headed Cowbird--30
Non-avian: Two Black Rat Snakes.

Good birding!

Bill

Bill Hubick
Pasadena, Maryland

http://www.billhubick.com