Hi all, 
 
A group of young birders and I had our annual trip to Chincoteague last weekend, but we did some birding around worchester county as well. I'm just listing some highlights that I can remember, but will post the whole list later. 
Saturday mourning we headed over to Truitt's Landing. On the road in, we stopped near some scrub, where we observed 2 thrushes, a hermit and late SWAINSON'S. There were a few Catbirds, but what really surprised us was a singing WHITE-EYED VIREO! We walked over and were treated to a view of 2, yes 2, young vireos. After seeing a pair of Sapsuckers, we continued on, saw a pair of pileated woodpeckers, and made it to Truitt's around 8. We heard the 3 rail species, some Palm warblers, and a flyover PIPIT, and then went walking around the marsh for sharp-tailed sparrows. We didn't find any sharp-tails, but I scared up an AMERICAN BITTERN about a foot away from me! Continuing on I noticed a large sparrow running on the ground that wouldn't fly away, and when we got a better look, it all made sense. It wad clearly an "IPSWICH" SAVANNAH SPARROW, with that typical behavior, its striking long legs and light faint streaking. 
Then we hit Vaughn, where we picked up PURPLE FINCHES, a calling Pied-billed grebe, and more PIPITS. Chincoteague was the next stop. 
On Sunday, we went around Ocean City, picking up some of the maryland species we missed. Turned out to be a perfect birding day, however it was also a perfect beach and fishing day, so the activity at the inlet scared away all the eiders and other species we were hoping for. People were actually walking on the jetty, which I thought was not allowed. We headed to WOC pond and found lots of ducks, but no Eurasian. Skimmers island was pretty empty, however we did pick up a late OSPREY sitting on a marker; he looked pretty confused. 32nd st didn't hold the eared grebe quite yet, but did give us Horned Grebe. 
So we were off to Eagles Nest Golf Course, striking out on the Eurasian again. But castaways held very nice birds. Imitating a screech owl to bring in some sparrows, we actually had a screech owl respond back from a bamboo patch near the water! After watching 3 OSPREYS and a ROYAL TERN clumsily fish the shallow water, we scanned (unfortunately at high tide with horrible lighting) and found a group of shorebirds. It was such bad lighting and the fact that they were tucked in, we coundn't make out much other than that they were large. But one was just out of the glare; it was white with black wings and had a disincitive white wing stripe, an AMERICAN AVOCET. The other shorebirds had a similar size and shape so they also could of been avocets. We also had a single black scoter. 
Thats all i can remember right now. It turned out to be a very nice weekend with very nice birds. 
 
Amanda Spears 
Centreville, MD