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Subject:

Big Sit -The Turkey Pointers (Cecil County)

From:

Chris Starling

Reply-To:

Chris Starling

Date:

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:54:01 -0400

Greetings,

The “Turkey Pointers” held their sixth Big Sit at Turkey Point (Elk Neck State Park) in Cecil County was held this past Sunday.  

I was joined by Kevin Graff, Joe Hanfman, and John Dennehy for nearly all of the 8 hour “sit.” We were also graced with Dennis Quinn’s presence for a while as well as a visiting NJ birder and two fellows from the DC area.  

We "sat" from 0430 to 1230'ish. We only finished with 67 species. Not our worst Big Sit but far short of last year’s 99 species. Despite this, we did have our best warbler sit-day ever with 14 or species. We also added three species to our cumulative list (Nashville and Chestnut-sided Warbler as well as Pintail) bringing it to 136 species for our six years of “sitting.”   

I think the many previous days of warm weather and the fact that I don't hear night time flight call notes too well (not that I could ID them) really hurt our numbers. We nixed on all swallows, though Dennis Quinn called out on one Tree Swallow from outside the circle, no one in the circle saw it. 

Waterfowl numbers were nearly nonexistent having seen only Canada Goose and one small flock of flyby Pintails. Flycatchers failed to appear, save for two Phoebes. We also missed on Heron, Catbird, Nuthatches, Grackle, Sparrows (except two "tseeting" White-throateds, as well as other expected flyby or calling migrants like White-eyed Vireo, Blue-headed Vireo, Indigo Bunting, Pipit, Meadowlark, Tanager, House Wren, etc. Even resident birds were few and far between, seeing/hearing a whole two or three Chickadees, ONE titmouse, and maybe five Cardinals. 

All that aside, it was a great day and fun time with some excellent company! 

The full list of species is provided below

Additionally, I have loaded a [very] few photos (mostly astronomical in nature) to my flickr account if you’re interested:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/familystar/sets/72157627755608207/

I hope you are all well!

~namaste~
-Chris Starling
North East, MD

2011 Big Sit Turkey Point, Cecil County, MD
Canada Goose
 Northern Pintail
 Double-crested Cormorant
 Turkey Vulture 
 Osprey
 Bald Eagle
 Northern Harrier
 Sharp-shinned Hawk
 Cooper's Hawk
 Red-tailed Hawk
 American Kestrel
 Merlin
 Laughing Gull
 Ring-billed Gull 
 Herring Gull 
 Great Black-backed Gull 
 Forster's Tern 
 Eastern Screech-Owl
 Great Horned Owl
 Barred Owl 
 Chimney Swift 
 Red-headed Woodpecker 
 Red-bellied Woodpecker 
 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 
 Downy Woodpecker 
 Northern Flicker 
 Pileated Woodpecker
 Eastern Phoebe 
 Philadelphia Vireo
 Red-eyed Vireo
 Blue Jay 
 American Crow 
 Fish Crow
  Carolina Chickadee
 Tufted Titmouse
 Brown Creeper 
 Carolina Wren 
 Golden-crowned Kinglet 
 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
 Eastern Bluebird 
 Swainson's Thrush 
 Wood Thrush 
 American Robin
 Northern Mockingbird
 European Starling 
 Cedar Waxwing 
 Tennessee Warbler 
 Nashville Warbler 
 Northern Parula 
 Chestnut-sided warbler 
 Magnolia Warbler 
 Cape May Warbler 
 Black-throated Blue Warbler 
 Yellow-rumped Warbler 
 Black-throated Green Warbler
 Palm Warbler 
 Blackpoll Warbler 
 Black-and-white Warbler 
 American Redstart 
 Common Yellowthroat 
 White-throated Sparrow
 Northern Cardinal 
 Red-winged Blackbird 
 Brown-headed Cowbird 
 Baltimore Oriole 
 House Finch 
 American Goldfinch

<om hare om> 

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