A sizable spring fallout happened today at the CBBT as a result of fog, which
has been variable but thick since the predawn hours on the lower Eastern
Shore and in the Chesapeake Bay mouth. I arrived after most of the action
was over, surely, around 1130 this morning, en route to Virginia Beach to run
errands. I spent about 2 1/2 hours checking the islands as carefully as time
permitted. The list is below.
Common Loon 2
Brown Pelican 12
Northern Gannet 10
Great Cormorant 7
Double-crested Cormorant 45
Mallard 2 (nesting pair; fed and watered by CBBT
personnel)
Red-breasted Merganser 12
Black Scoter 1 hen
Laughing Gull 150+
Herring Gull 7
Great Black-backed Gull 20+
Ring-billed Gull 2
Common Tern 20+
Royal Tern 15
Forster's Tern 2
Black Skimmer 2
Parasitic Jaeger 1 ad. light morph, Island 4, 11:36 AM
Least Sandpiper 1 (d)
Ruddy Turnstone 40+
Spotted Sandpiper 1
Short-billed Dowitcher 1
Red Knot 15
Black-bellied Plover 1
Semipalmated Plover 2
Northern Harrier 1
Merlin 2
Osprey 2
Green Heron 11
Glossy Ibis 7
Clapper Rail 5 (d); only 2 new ones
Virginia Rail 1 (d)
Barn Swallow 8
Northern Rough-winged Swallow 2
Gray Catbird 115+ (plus 15 d)
Marsh Wren 1
Black-throated Blue Warbler 10 (plus 3 d)
Yellow-rumped Warbler 1
Magnolia Warbler 1
Blackpoll Warbler 1 (d)
Yellow-breasted Chat 1 (d)
Ovenbird 7 (plus 3 d)
Common Yellowthroat 88 (plus 65 d)
Orchard Oriole 1 subadult male
Swamp Sparrow 5
Savannah Sparrow 12
Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrow 5 (one apparently Acadian race)
Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow 1
Seaside Sparrow 21 (plus 2 d)
White-throated Sparrow 3
Eastern Towhee 1 female
Eastern Kingbird 2
Indigo Bunting 1 male (in the corn put out for Mallards)
Obviously the main players were catbirds and yellowthroats here; I had never
seen mortality (=d) so high for either species before, though the catbirds
appeared to fare better than the warblers overall. After speaking with one
of the CBBT policemen on duty (Jim Moncrieff, who is a birder), it became
clear that many of the dead birds had been eaten by the larger gulls earlier
in the morning; the remaining birds that I found were the "leftovers" after
the gulls and Fish Crows had eaten their fill. I think at one point I
photographed 20 catbirds in the same frame. Most of the birds were
photographable, with some patience, though the catbirds were jumpy. Many of
the species noted above were in the rocks rather than the grass on the
islands; the CBBT has cut all the goldenrod and taller vegetation here, which
probably accounts for the absence of anything other than ground- or
near-ground-dwelling species.
Ned Brinkley
Cape Charles, VA
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