Message:

[

Previous   Next

]

By Topic:

[

Previous   Next

]

Subject:

Arctic Tern, Ferry Neck, mouth of Choptank River, Talbot County.

From:

Harry Armistead

Reply-To:

Harry Armistead

Date:

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:25:46 +0000

Arctic Tern at Choptank River mouth, Ferry Neck, 0.25 miles SE of Lucy Point, Talbot County.  Seen at 11:28 A.M. flying NW, Sunday, August 28, 2011, at c. 150 feet, in good light, with 10 X 42 Swarovskis and also through a 32X Leica scope.  
 
A beautiful adult in breeding plumage with a strking, lovely, blood-red bill, red to the tip, no trace of orange or even reddish-orange coloration.  A more compact tern than the Commons and Forster’s also seen this morning, with a shorter, stockier-looking neck.  Underside of the primaries easy to see with their rather clean, neat, narrow, blackish trailing edge.  
 
I’ve previously seen breeding Arctic Terns in Maine and Manitoba (Churchill) as well as migrants off the NC coast.  Viewed this one for about a minute at eye level, sometimes slightly lower.  
 
Seen from the dining room of neighbors’ house through windows w/o distortion, and, of course, out of the 30-40 m.p.h. winds.  The rains had stopped before the time of sunrise.  
 
This is a new species for my state (351), county (293), and yard (269) lists.  All birds seen during this 4.25 hour “sea watch” were headed NW into the WNW winds and also seen passing off of our shoreline, only 150 feet NW from the neighbors’ house. 
 
The 3rd edition of the Yellow Book shows records only for Allegheny and Worcester Counties as well as the pelagic zone offshore.  But that is a 1996 reference and obviously more records have been achieved since then.
 
– Henry (“Harry”) T. Armistead, Philadelphia.  		 	   		  
############################

To unsubscribe from the MDOSPREY list:
write to: mailto:[log in to unmask]
or click the following link:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=MDOSPREY&A=1