Exploring The Coast of Virginia's Eastern Shore 1/7/06

After spending the past five years birding exclusively in Maryland, I am real excited that I am going to get to spend time exploring Delaware and Virginia, searching for new places to bird and going places where I have never been. After reading that Harry Armistead had had a massive flock of Marbled Godwits at Willis Warf, Virginia, my girlfriend Colleen and I decided to drive down to the Eastern Shore of Virginia and see if we could relocate Harry's birds. Other than birding Chincoteague and Kiptopeke State Park I have never really explored Virginia's Eastern Shore and I was really excited about all the cool habitat that we saw. We drove straight to Willis Warf which is a small waterfront comunity that sits right against the beautiful coastal marsh. When we arrived around 11:00am the tide was quite high and other than a few Bufflehead there were no birds in sight. Colleen and I then explored the back roads on the coastal side of the peninsula until we arrived in Oyster. Oyster is another small community built on the marshes. Red-throated Loons and Brant were eating in the small marshy cuts while gulls picked at discarded seafood byproducts that had been thrown out by local picking houses. At Kiptopeke State Park, which is situated on the bay side there were Brown Pelicans and Horned Grebes working the waters near the docks and jetties. On our way back north we decided to stop and have lunch at Stingrays (a great little diner just north of Kiptopeke on Rt 13) and try Willis Warf one more time. When we arrived the tide was low exposing large mud flats that were chocked full of shorebirds. As I jumped out of the car a Peregrine Falcon swooped down and dive bombed the large flock of Western Willets and Marbled Godwits causing all the birds to get up. It was a beautiful sight seeing the buffy underwings of the Godwits flying with the black and white wings of the Willets. I took a thousand photos (none of which I was very pleased with) as the birds flew out over the flats. Marbled Godwits are a rare bird in Maryland and to see so many in one flock was an incredible sight. After the Godwit/Willet spectacle we zoomed up to Chincoteague and tooks some photos of Greater Yellowlegs working an oyster pile but it was starting to get dark and it had been a long day so we drove for home.