I birded the Jug Bay area and Merkle today, starting out the morning in my yard at 9 am (1 hour), then on to Jackson Landing (50 min) and Selby's Landing (15 min), then the Critical Area Driving Tour (60 min) and ending up at Merkle Wildlife Management Area (30 min).  About 4.0 hours and 89 species for total.  Highlights were 18 warbler species, including 11 at my yard, and although overall variety was very good (especially for this county!) it was not outstanding - given the peak of migration right now.  I thought the number of individuals was low for migrants (non-local breeders), but seemed to be great for local breeders.  Note - the high number of Parulas, Redstarts, and Ovenbirds reflect the ease of detecting them as I was driving along the park roads and critical area driving tour, as most other warblers are harder to detect while driving!  Although Hoodeds are also easy to identify, there aren't as many of them as with the other species.  All of these are breeding in this area in good numbers.  I also had a nice number of Bobolinks (42), they seem to be in good numbers this week.

Warblers:
Northern Parula	27
Yellow Warbler	8
Magnolia Warbler	1
Black-throated Blue Warbler	2
Yellow-rumped Warbler	19
Yellow-throated Warbler	4
Pine Warbler	2
Prairie Warbler	1
Blackpoll Warbler	17
Black-and-white Warbler	4
American Redstart		26
Prothonotary Warbler	4
Ovenbird	 38
Northern Waterthrush	1
Louisiana Waterthrush	1
Common Yellowthroat	19
Hooded Warbler		12
Yellow-breasted Chat	1

P.S.  I also had a new yard bird yesterday morning - a Worm-eating Warbler (finally)!

Cheers!
Jeff Shenot
Croom MD

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