Hi all,
As reported here by several observers, water levels at Chincoteague are
terribly high, enough to make birding a pretty marginal activity here.
Nevertheless, I have enjoyed afternoon visits there on 4 August (with Tom
Saunders) and 7
August (with Peter Pyle and Steve Howell) enough to mention the shorebirds
etc. observed. The list for the two days is:
Lesser Yellowlegs 0/13
Greater Yellowlegs 7/22
Spotted Sandpiper 0/4
Sanderling 0/3
Western Sandpiper 3/5
Semipalmated Sandpiper 20/75
Least Sandpiper 10/25
Semipalmated Plover 20/90
Piping Plover 0/0 (probably 6000 people on the beach yesterday!)
Short-billed Dowitcher 15/45
Long-billed Dowitcher 2/0
Pectoral Sandpiper 1/2
Eastern Willet 0/1
Western Willet 10/40
willet unidentified 20/20+
Whimbrel 2/0
Ruddy Turnstone 5/21
Black-bellied Plover 2/15
American Oystercatcher 10/30
Of terns, high counts were all yesterday - 38 Sandwich, 60 Royal, 45 Least, 2
Caspian, 21 Common (one SY), and 70+ Forster's. Skimmers numbered about 50,
with only 2 juveniles seen so far. Howell and Pyle suspected that birds in
unusual molt hanging around the east ends of Swan Cove and Tom's Cove might be
pre-breeders (SY or TY).
We did not find the Elegant Tern (found by Mike Boatwright 2 August), which
has been about as cooperative as the bird in September 2001 - which is to say,
squirrelly at best, but Mike has posted his photograph from 5 August to:
http://home.att.net/~mboater/birding.html ;
and it does look like an Elegant Tern, though the image is a little stretched
as posted currently. The tides at Queen Sound have made it tough to be there
at just the right time (early morning, late evening) from Cape Charles, but
hopefully the bird will stick around to be enjoyed by other birders. By far
the largest numbers of terns have been around the east side of Tom's Cove on
the
beach, in the area roped off (can be viewed with a scope from the boundary).
Lots of shorebirds fly past this point, some putting down briefly, and a
Peregrine ate a Least Tern here yesterday.
Migration was also evident in the scrub on the east end of Swan Cove -
redstart, Yellow Warbler, and a waterthrush. Yellows, redstarts, and
gnatcatchers
were also swarming in the trees of Cape Charles on Friday after the passage of
this surprisingly cool cold front. Otherwise, mostly Spotted Sandpipers
attest to migration here. Numbers of Yellow-billed Cuckoos around the county
continue to be high, at least in my limited experience here.
Ned Brinkley
Cape Charles, VA
P. S. - The Cape Charles Coffee Company is open for business on Mason Avenue
(closed Tues. and Wed.); it offers excellent soups, sandwiches, etc. in a very
fancy setting (an old bank, renovated for about $1 million over the past
three years!). Also, at King's Creek, at the north end of Cape Charles (end of
Fig St.), the restaurant known as Aqua has opened (rather posh - lots of
marble,
leather, etc. in the interior), with a new bar in the same complex (Village
Cabana) as well. Both have views of the Bay and King's Creek. A new pizzeria, V
eneto's, is also set to open this week on Mason Avenue.
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