Hello all
Pat & I went on a two day venture to the Eastern Shore where we had a total of
144 species of bird life in which 2 were life birds . Below is some of the
highlights of our trip.
On Thursday the 9th we started off on the CBBT where we had some great views of
White --throated Sparrow , Savannah Sparrow & the best was a Sharp -- tailed
Sparrow on the East side of Island 3 & on the West side a dead Virginia Rail .
Which was a life bird . Also near the rock jetty was a lone Surf Scoter .
Purple Sandpiper , Ruddy Turnstones were on all Islands . On 2 & 3 we had Short
-- billed Dowitcher . Brown Pelicans were every where .
Once on the Eastern Shore -- a quick stop off at ESNWR rewarded us with Glossy
Ibis , Wild Turkey near Ramp Rd. Prairie Warbler in the cedars on Ramp Rd.
After netting a few species there we were off to Willis Wharf . There we had
Gull -- billed Tern , Black Skimmer , Whimbrel & 100's of thousands of biting
gnats . Then it was off to Chincoteague . There we had Great Horned Owl with
young in the beetle damaged section of pines . Chuck -- will's -- Widow , Sora
, Clapper & Va. Rail ( were seen & heard ) , Woodcock ( still displaying ) , a
lone Snow Goose , Black Duck , Gadwall . Bobwhite were seen several times thru
out our stay & we netted a total of 17 Warbler species for the whole trip . We
ended Thursday night by watching the lighting light up the sky .
Friday the 10th was a good day for bird watching because of natures fire works
on Thursday night & a nice short rain storm brought in some nice birds . But
the bird of our trip was seen at 5 : 30 pm near the Visitors center at Tom's
Cove was a non --breeding plumaged male LARK BUNTING !!!! We were traveling
towards the visitors center when Pat saw the bird sitting on the right side of
the road in a bush with a dead snag ( sitting in a car -- eye level ) . I
pulled up next to it (about 15 feet away from it ) & ID the bird as a Lark
Bunting . As I was going for the camera several cars came up behind me & making
the bird take flight . I watched where it went & got the car off the road .
Camera in hand & ready to fire off a few pics of this rare beauty . Then out of
no where came THESE two kids with there father on bikes . The bird took off &
landed in the open . I fired off one distant shot of the bird before THESE
kids raced there bikes up the road with the father yelling at them not to get
to far ahead . As they were racing the Bunting stayed just ahead of them &
finally breaking off to the left side of the road just short of the visitors
center , never to be seen by Pat & I again . We searched the area over for at
least a couple of hours with no luck .
This morning we left early to get back across the CBBT . A north wind kept all
the birds off the Islands except when we got to Island one where all of the
Purple Sandpipers were hunkered down . I counted 64 + Purple Sandpipers which
ended our 2 day trip to the Eastern Shore .
On another note -- after getting home & once things settled down I opened our e
-- mail & saw a message from one of the list servers that my computer has a
virus . Our computer is clean -- on Wednesday night our anti virus PC --cillin
2000 detected a couple of viruses which were blocked & deleted from our machine
. If you ever see our e -- mail address larnersky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx with an
attachment --- GET RID OF IT -- we DO NOT send attachments with our e-- mail
reports . There is a new virus out there who goes into an infected machine &
takes that machines address book & sends out infected mail .
You are subscribed to VA-BIRD. To post to this mailing list, simply send email
to va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. To unsubscribe, send email to
va-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.
