I took a weekend birding trip with a friend, Tony
Jones, from Utah who's never birded in the east
before. I've also never spent a summer here, so we
spent a marathon 3 days finding as many new birds as
we could. It was exhausting, but a lot of fun. I'll
just include the highlights (I haven't tallied the
final species count yet).
April 26th:
Great Dismal Swamp (Jericho Ditch):
Swainson's warbler 4 (heard only)
prairie warbler
prothonotary
ovenbird
white-eyed vireo
red-eyed vireo
worm-eating warbler
common yellowthroat
hermit thrush
Pretty quiet overall, although I may have missed a few
calls I'm not yet familiar with.
Craney Island Landfill:
brown pelican
royal tern (lots)
gull-billed tern 6
least tern 2
both yellowlegs
willet
semipalmated sandpiper and plover
killdeer
least sandpiper
northern shoveler
blue-winged teal
Chesapeake Bay-Bridge Tunnel:
gannet 4
American oystercatcher 1
purple sandpiper (over 50)
brown pelican
great cormorant (1 juvenile)
Eastern Shore NWR:
Baird's sandpiper (3 on the freshwater pond)
semipalmated plover
glossy ibis
clapper rail
little blue heron
tricolored heron
common tern
turkey (flew up out of the saltmarsh!)
marsh wren
(missed on the sedge wrens)
Willis Wharf:
marbled godwit 100+
pectoral sandpiper 1
dowitcher sp. 16
black skimmer (50+)
dunlin 2
whimbrel (c. 35)
semipalamated plover 28
merlin 1
Saxis Marsh:
Seaside sparrow (lots singing)
clapper rail (many)
marsh wren
Didn't hear any black rails
April 28th:
Chincoteague NWR:
saltmarsh sharp-tailed sparrow 3+
Nelson's sharp-tailed sparrow (got nice looks at it
sitting up on a reed stem by the bridge between
Chincoteague and Assateague Islands. This may be
late, but we saw it well and heard it sing while
saltmarsh's also sang close by)
stilt sandpiper
ANHINGA (Tony saw this bird fly over, unfortunately I
missed it - he described it as a fast-flying bird with
short rapid wingbeats; overall cormorant-shaped but
longer-necked and slimmer; pale neck and chest, black
elsewhere; can't think what else it could be?)
dunlin (lots, with many in breeding plumage)
dowitcher sp.
least sandpiper
Forster's tern - many
glossy ibis
all the expected heron species (except night herons)
clapper rail (lots with some nice looks)
I'm probably forgetting a few, but those were the
highlights.
Philip Kline
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