Good morning, all - 

Jim Stasz and Ed Boyd relocated the Audubons's Warbler at Bayside A23.

Bill

Bill Hubick
Pasadena, Maryland

Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone

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From: "Bill Hubick" <>
To: <>
Subject: [MDOSPREY] Audubon's Warbler on Assateague Island
Date: Sat, Dec 3, 2011 11:23 pm


Hi Everyone,

Dan Small and I spent a very enjoyable day birding Assateague Island and the Ocean City Inlet. Standing out among highlights was an AUDUBON'S WARBLER that we found in the Bayside Campground. It was feeding with a mixed sparrow and Myrtle flock, favoring the island of habitat between sites A13 and A23. Photos and a recording of its chipping are linked below.

We started the day hiking most of Assateague State Park. Although it was fairly quiet, we did relocate a HOUSE WREN that my team found at the south end of the state park during the Rarity Roundup. We also turned up two IPSWICH SPARROWs on the edge of the dunes on our walk back up. Near Pumphouse 2, Dan spotted the LARK SPARROW found on 11/24 by Rob Ostrowski. While I was slowly repositioning for better light, the sparrow decided to fly half the distance to me and then run another few feet toward me. Dan and I spent about 30 minutes just drinking in the close study in the morning light, eventually backing away without ever flushing it. Awesome bird!  We'd been joined for part of the morning by Brian Phillips. Soon after departing, he called us to report an OSPREY fishing over Ayres Creek along Route 376. Since we were only minutes away, we cruised over to pick up the nice December bird. (Thanks, Brian!) We later learned that Ron Gutberlet had already
 found this bird. Had he not already entered it into eBird, I would accuse him of strategically suppressing rare Maryland month birds! ;)

We then worked the Maintenance Yard and Bayside Campground and had fairly steady activity. We had one ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER in the Maintenance Yard and another on the west end of the B Campground. A skulking immature male HOUSE SPARROW near the Maintenance Yard was another uncommon find for the island. FOX SPARROWs were present in small numbers, a couple of them singing.

We spent the last two hours of daylight doing a sea-watch from the Ocean City Inlet, where we were joined by Jim Stasz and Ed Boyd. When we arrived, we immediately noted a significant movement of RED-THROATED LOONs. We took turns carefully watching the horizon and clicking them. In 125 minutes we tallied 671 RED-THROATED LOONs, so I'd expect that at least a few thousand passed Ocean City today. Three HARLEQUIN DUCKs flew by the Inlet, and later we noticed a female/immature hanging out on the south jetty. Also present were BROWN PELICAN (1), GREAT CORMORANT (1), WHITE-WINGED SCOTERs (4) among a few hundred flyby scoters, BONAPARTE'S GULLs (68), LAUGHING GULLs (5), FORSTER'S TERNs (43), and PURPLE SANDPIPERs (20).

To complete the ritual of fine coastal Maryland birding, we ended with refreshments at Plaza Tapatia. Great day!

Photos/audio:
http://www.billhubick.com/photos/updates/20111203.php

Good birding!

Bill

Bill Hubick
Pasadena, Maryland

http://www.billhubick.com

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