Hi all,

I spent the day birding various spots on the Eastern Shore looking for
recent arrivals. I started at Bayside on Assateague, the heron flight was
nice with TRI-COLORED (6) and LITTLE BLUE (2) HERONs, and CATTLE (3), GREAT
(20) and SNOWY (9) EGRETs, as well as a flock of around 60 PLEGADIS sp. IBIS
(too far to ID, but certainly most if not all were Glossies) a PRAIRIE
WARBLER flew in off the bay and landed in the bushes near the point, where
there was also a single BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER.  Moving south, the life of
the forest trail had two singing YELLOW-THROATED WARBLERs, numerous PINE
WARBLERs, and a singing WINTER WREN.  North of the State Park was pretty
quiet, with the best here being two PIPING PLOVERs displaying to one
another.    I tried to relocate the ibis flock I had seen earlier flying
over South Point to no avail, there aren't many field puddles yet this
year.  Castaways Campground was the next stop and the flats here held
numerous DUNLIN, BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER, SANDERLING, FORSTER'S TERN, and 3
PIPING PLOVER.  A seawatch at the inlet was not too productive, but there
were impressive numbers of RED-THROATED and COMMON LOONs sitting on the
water, a COMMON YELLOWTHROAT flew in off the ocean, landed briefly, and
continued north along the boarwalk, there was one GREAT CORMORANT on the
south jetty, a flyby WHITE-WINGED SCOTER, and still lots of PURPLE
SANDPIPER, SURF and BLACK SCOTERS around. From there I headed to the
Nassawango area which had impressive numbers of recently arrived species
including- AMERICAN REDSTART (2, Mt Olive Church Road), HOODED WARBLER (1
female, Mt Olive Church Rd bridge), NORTHERN PARULA (1, Sturges Road),
BLACK-AND-WHITE WARBLER (1, Bear Swamp Road), YELLOW-THROATED WARBLER (many,
all stops), LOUISIANA WATERTHRUSH (many, most stops), BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER
(many, all stops), and PINE WARBLER (many, all stops).  And of course no
visit to the Eastern Shore would be complete without at least an hour of
gulling at the Salisbury landfill, among the thousand plus
LAUGHING/RING-BILLED/HERRING GULLS, I located a single very bleached
first-cycle THAYER's GULL, 8 LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULLS (2 ad, 2 third cycle,
1 second cycle, and 3 first cycle), and a single CASPIAN TERN.  Working back
home, I stopped and scanned gull flocks, one that was located on Indiantown
Road near the ski pond had 6 BONAPARTE'S GULLs mixed in with the LAUGHING
and RING-BILLEDs.

Good Birding!

Mikey Lutmerding
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeycerw/
Croom, MD

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