Following Matt Hafner's sighting of a possible Brown Booby on the Lower
Eastern Shore of Maryland 27 June (around Stone Harbor?), I hear from Paul
Lehman
that a second-year Brown Booby is flying around Cape May Point State Park with
Greater and Cory's Shearwaters this morning. This follows a rash of
late-spring reports from the Carolina sounds. It is likely that Brown Booby
has been
in Virginia waters this spring, then. The state has few records, all of them
older records. This species likes to hang out on channel markers and is
fairly tolerant of approach by people when perched. (The CBBT would be a
logical place to look for it, but past records have been in the Bay and around
Lynnhaven Inlet.) When foraging, the bird makes very shallow-angle dives,
from
low over the water, often quite different from the high plunges of gannets.
Brown Booby is also a much smaller bird, much slenderer in profile (both body
and wing; the wings look especially slender), not to be confused with gannet by
those who know gannets well.
Cape Charles news is scant. Tom Saunders found an adult Blue Goose (blue
morph of Snow Goose) oversummering on Crystal Lake (Washington St.), Cape
Charles three days ago, a bird that continues there. Alex Wilkie found an
injured
Purple Sandpiper on the jetty at Cape Charles on 17 June, quite a rare summer
record for us. The two Common Eiders have not been seen this month, despite
checks of neighboring rip-rap around Bayshore Concrete Products and elsewhere.
As one was flightless (heavily molted), they probably have not gone far and
might be down around the concrete ships at Kiptopeke State Park. Lots of
Northeastern Beach Tiger Beetles have been seen over the past 3 weeks on local
beaches, a nice sight. Young of most species -- including Orchard Oriole,
Purple Martin, and House Finch in my yard, Osprey on the Bay -- are out of the
nest. It seemed to be a very good year for nesting birds overall, and Alex
Wilkie reports excellent success in birds nesting on the barrier islands as
well.
Ned Brinkley
Cape Charles, VA (still booby-free)
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