Birding Dorchester County 1/14/07

On Sunday my girlfriend Colleen and my friend Karl Piltz and I spent most of the day birding Dorchester County. Karl just purchased a new Nikon D100 and he wanted to photograph some of the scenery at my grandfather's abandoned boatyard on LeCompt Creek west of Cambridge. While Karl and Colleen wandered around taking pictures of old wooden boats I went looking for some of the local birds. Eastern Towhees, Whitethroats, and a Carolina Wren were all ticked. While a flock of Chickadees and Brown-headed Nuthatches caused me much consternation and eluded my camera. After Karl had gotten his fill of old boats we headed to Blackwater NWR to try to get shots of the White Pelicans that have been hanging out all winter. Unfortunately when we got to the pelican site the lighting was horrible so we decided to come back later on in the day. The Eurasian Collared-Doves on Hooper's Island were our next target. I was also hoping to take photos of the Sanderling flock that has been present all winter on the causeway between the upper and lower islands. Neither the Doves or the Sanderling flock were seen. It was starting to get a depressing. I had missed almost all my target species for the weekend. We spent almost an hour on the island and by the time we left I had gotten zero photos. We stopped back at Blackwater NWR and got shots of the pelicans. Unfortunately the White Pelican flock congregates on flats that are quite a distance from the road so my photos are not that great but they are identifiable so I'm going with them. On the Cambridge waterfront resides a Canvasback flock which was our next stop. Great shots of Canvasbacks, Mallards, American Wigeon, and a Greater Scaup were all taken. We were almost out to Rt. 50 when Bill Hubick called and said that Harry Armistead might have had a female Barrow's Goldeneye on Hooper's Island. Arggghh!!! It had been a long day and the thought of driving all the back to Hooper's Island was not appealing. But I have a grebe to save from extinction so I dropped Karl off at the bar, told him we would pick him up on the way back through, and Colleen and I headed back down county. When we arrived at the spot where Harry had the goldeneye there was nothing out in the bay but an Oldsquaw and a few Bufflehead (all to far out to photograph) so we drove to where the doves were being seen by everybody but us. They still did not want to be seen. I think they can smell my car as soon as I get on the island. It was a long day and even though I missed some targets I still managed some good photos and the Bears won.