Hello Folks,

Saturday's weather forecast left me thinking that I'd be doing a fairly
short May count, and I had planned to be home taking a nap by 2 in the
afternoon.  Didn't happen.  Instead, the counters consisting of Ed Carlson,
Charlie Kucera, Elaine Arnold and myself did what amounted to another big
day, tallying at least 117 species.  I met Ed Carlson at Swan Creek at 5
a.m., and Charlie and I rolled up our driveway just before 8 p.m. to end the
day.  The highlights:  an incredible eleven species of shorebird, including
four key Anne Arundel species, Ring-necked Duck, Red-breasted Merganser,
Pied-billed Grebe and Wild Turkey.  The shorebird species included
SEMIPALMATED PLOVER, BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER, SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER, STILT
SANDPIPER, RUDDY TURNSTONE, and SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHER.

The day began very slowly, with the threat of rain.  The Swan Creek facility
opened up specifically for us to do the May count, so Ed Carlson and I began
with some of the back areas, finding nothing of note until it was almost
daylight, and a Great Horned Owl gave a single call.  This was a new bird
for the property.  The Patapsco River was extremely high, and the wetlands
were more flooded than I've seen this year.  This left us with no rails, and
not even a usually reliable Marsh Wren.  After the first 90 minutes, the
count was looking like a big disappointment.  Charlie Kucera joined us a bit
after 6 a.m., and the three of us went up to the dredge cells, where the
complexion of the count changed radically.  While Ed was counting the
Caspian Terns, I was counting the gulls and then my scope hit on a large
shorebird.  "BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER" I exclaimed, and then another, and
another.  Ed and Charlie were on them now, and Ed chimed in with a fourth
bird.  We watched them at length.  Three were in breeding plumage, but the
fourth was fairly brown, and we wrote down plumage details in case it was
something different, but alas it had a pale cap, and was just a
basic-plumaged Black-belly.  While I was digiscoping the plovers, some other
shorebirds landed nearby, then flew off.  I pulled back to view what looked
like five Lesser Yellowlegs.  They landed where we could get a good look at
them.  Hmmm, four of them were definitely Lesser Legs, but the fifth was
shorter, darker, and had a noticeably longer bill that was curved downward.
The bold barring on the flanks sealed the ID--a STILT SANDPIPER, not quite
in full breeding plumage, my first in AA County.  As we hiked around the
dyke, a small bird flushed from the road ahead of us, landing at the edge,
bobbing it's tail.  A Palm Warbler? two of us asked ourselves.  Nope.  The
scope offered a nice view of an AMERICAN PIPIT, certainly a spring late date
for me.  The north dredge cell added some more shorebirds:  a SEMIPALMATED
SANDPIPER among ten or so Leasts, and later another one in the company of
two SEMIPALMATED PLOVERs.  We finished this property with an impressive
eight species of shorebird.

Ed had to leave us at this point, and Charlie and I spent the remainder of
the day hitting about 20 locations, working our way from north to south
through the county.   The Patuxent Refuge, North Tract offered us a WILD
TURKEY running across the road ahead of us, and in the late afternoon, the
quarry along Macpumphre Drive hosted the same RING-NECKED DUCK as we had a
week ago during our big day, but also had a PIED-BILLED GREBE, and plenty of
BANK SWALLOWs from the colony there.  At this point I was really ready to
call it quits, but then I became haunted by the prospect of what birds we
might miss.  It's a good thing we kept going.   A short visit to the
Glendening Nature Preserve produced no warblers, but a GRAY-CHEEKED THRUSH
was ample consolation.  Our last stop of the day was Herrington Harbor which
had been very disappointing a week earlier during the big day.  Today was
different.  Before even leaving the main road, we pulled onto the shoulder
to view the vernal pond in the meadow there, finding a DOWITCHER among some
more common shorebirds.  Once on the property, we added Royal Tern, Laughing
Gull, and Purple Martin to our day's tally, but the best bird of all came
while we were scanning the larids on the pilings, and an adult RUDDY
TURNSTONE flew in and landed on a piling.  After some brief scope views, it
flew to the beach where we were able get some more great views.

Elaine did yard-watch all day, and added ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK to our
tally, along with House Finch which we found nowhere in our travels.  Also,
we ran into Ron Guthberlet, who was birding along Kembo Road near Swan
Creek.  He found some very nice birds, so I'm hoping he'll send a complete
list to add to the count, or post his results.  Let's hear it for rainy
weather.  What a great shorebird fallout in AA.

By the way, on Friday, I visited Patuxent Ponds Park, and had a flyover
RED-HEADED WOODPECKER, my first in the county in nearly two years.

Stan Arnold
Ferndale


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