Catching up in May

To be honest keeping a blog up to date is more of a challange than I anticipated. I have fallen way behind in my posts so I will try to catch up on what has been going on in May. The month started with Jim Stasz and I doing an early Dorchester County May count on Taylor's Island. Harry Armistead has been conducting bird counts on the first and second weekend of every May for a very long time. For the past couple years I have been helping out on the count by canvasing Taylor's Island. Taylor's is located right on the Chesapeake Bay and is normally a great trap for migrant birds. But not this year. Jim and I only counted 95 species with only one migrant -- a Parula Warbler. Last year we had almost 120 species of birds. Fortunately I scored some major photos. The best being a Red-headed Woodpecker. Red-headed Woodpeckers are residents on the Eastern Shore but very uncommon and to see one is always exciting. Another exciting find was a Juniper Hairstreak. I have only seem one other Juniper Hairstreak so this was a great find. Unfortunately the pic isn't that great but it is identifiable. The next weekend I took a break from saving the grebe and participated in my third World Series of Birding in Cape May, New Jersey. The Maryland Ornithological Society sponsered our team the MOS Yellowthroats. We participate in the Cape May County only class and try to identify as many birds as possible in a 24 hour period from midnight Friday to midnight Saturday. We won our class this year with 184 species. It is an awesome feeling to stand in front of many of the top birders in the country and receive the trophy. After the hectic five days of the series it was nice to just go back to work and watch TV in the evening, but last weekend it all started again. Jim Stasz, Tom Field, Hans Holbrook, and myself hit the Nassawango and Nanticoke River areas hard in search of birds and bugs. Dragonflies and Damselflies were the stars of the weekend with the best being a male and female Furtive Forktail seen in Worcester and Wicomico Counties. These were the first documented sightings for Maryland constituting a new state record! Harlequin Darners, Cyrano Darners, Eastern Red Damsels, and Spaghnum Sprites were all documented for the big year. Another highlight from the weekend was a Bicknell's Thrush seen at Pusey's Bridge in Worcester County. Bicknell's Thrush are very difficult to identify if you don't hear their song. They are very similar in appearence to Gray-cheeked Thrush and only slight differences in plumage color and size separate the two species. We were able to study the thrush very well. It was a new state bird for me and a big plus for the photo big year. So we are now up to date. Now that things have settled down hopefully I will be a little more punctual with my posts.

Chincoteague, Virginia and Eastern Worcester County, Maryland4/28/07

Photos: Chincoteague Fishing Shack. Common Yellowthroat -- E.A. Vaughn WMA. Black Swallowtail -- E.A. Vaughn WMA.


I decided to head to Chincoteague, Virginia last Saturday with the goal of photographing American Oystercatchers and Whimbrels. In Maryland it is difficult to get close to these two species of shorebirds without some luck but at Chincoteague there are a few oyster beds close to the road where Oystercatchers are regular and Whimbrels are often observed in the marshes close to the road in the refuge. I arrived at the oysterbeds around 7:30 in the morning and to my chagrin they were completely under water. Getting out of my car I did a quick scan along a small beach by the road and about twenty feet away was a single Oystercatcher! I took many photos and finally was able to get a pic of the Oystercatcher with an oyster in its beak. I then headed into the refuge where I drove straight to the marshes where I had seen Whimbrel on previous visits. Once again I was in luck, but the birds were farther away than I had hoped. Still I got one decent photo to use on the website. Whimbrels are the only curlews that are regular migrants along the east coast. They are very skittish birds, so I was glad to get this bird photographed. I took a walk through the low pine woods on one of the refuge trails where I ran into a flock of Myrtle Warblers and Blue-headed Vireos. Blue-headed Vireos are one of the early migrants songbirds on Delmarva. When I was almost back to the parking lot I noticed something move behind a big pine tree. It turned out to be a fat "Delmarva" Fox Squirrel. "Delmarva" Fox Squirrels are an endangered sub-species of Fox Squirrel that live only on the Delmarva Peninsula. Fox Squirrels need clear forests to live and with the destruction of this habitat across most of their range they have become rare. Blue Grosbeaks and Little Blue Herons were also added to the photo list. On the way out of the refuge I photographed a large Red-bellied Turtle basking on a log in the ditch alongside the road. From Chincoteague I traveled up into Maryland and hit E.A. Vaughn WMA in eastern Worcester County. E.A. Vaughn WMA is an area of marshes, pine woods, and mixed woodland that borders on the bay which separates the mainland from the barrier islands. Along a small pond I found a pair of Solitary Sandpipers that were very cooperative for my camera. I also was able to get photos of Common Yellowthroats and White-eyed Vireos. Yellowthroats are pretty little warblers that live in marsh habitats and White-eyed Vireos are commonly found in scrubby areas across Delmarva. A good find was a very fresh Black Swallowtail nectoring on a flowering bush. On the way back home from Worcester County I made a brief stop along the Nassawango where I was able to photograph a female American Redstart. April 28th was the best photo day I have had all year with 14 species added to my photo list.

Warblers, Elfins, and Shorebirds 4/22/07

Flooded Field where the Ruff and many other shore birds were seen -- Covey's landing Road, Talbot County, Maryland. Eastern Fence Lizard -- Old Bradley Road, Wicomico County, Maryland. Brown Elfin -- Old Bradley Road, Wicomico County, Maryland.


After spending Saturday driving around the dry sandy upland areas of Caroline County, I decide to head back towards the swampy lowlands of the Nassawango to try to photograph Yellow-throated Warblers and other bird species that had arrived over the past week. Yellow-throated Warblers are one of the first neo-migrants to arrive on their breeding grounds on Delmarva. They breed in lowland and coastal pine forests and are easiest to locate in the early Spring because their calls are distinctive and are not drowned out by the songs of later migrants. The Nassawango area has one of the largest populations of Yellow-throated Warblers on Maryland's eastern shore. As soon as I arrived on Bear Swamp Rd in Wicomico County I heard the Yellow-throated Warblers calling in the pine trees. By using a screech owl tape I was able to get one bird to come down from the tree top and get a photo. Prairie Warblers unlike Yellow-throateds live in scrubby cut-over areas. They had arrived over the past week and were calling incessently. American Redstarts, White-eyed and Yellow-throated Vireos, Northern Parulas, and Ovenbirds had also migrated into the Nassawango. After the Nassawngo I headed to Old Bradley Rd. Old Bradley is a small sand road that parallels the Nanticoke River. The road is surrounded by sandy pine forest. There are trails where you can walk through the pines towards the river and eventually run into a white cedar/cypress swamp. I have always had good luck on these trails and today was no different. I saw four Brown Elfins! They were a new state butterfly for me and it was only the second time I had ever seen this species. I was super excited and got a couple great photographs. Eastern Fence Lizards are the most common lizard on Delmarva in sandy pine enviroments. These lizards are a mix of browns and grays on top but if you catch one and turn it upside down they have the most beautiful blue , black, and white undersides. The photo I took shows some of the blue underneath the lizards chin. While leaving Old Bradley Matt Hafner called me on my cell and told me that a Ruff had been spotted in a flooded field in northern Talbot County. This was exciting news. Ruffs are very rare in Maryland but annual along the Delaware coast and it was going to be new for my Talbot County bird list. In a field along Covey's Landing Road was a large depression that had filled with water from the rains earlier in the week. The depression was full of shorebirds and gulls. Pectoral and Least Sandpipers, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Wilson's Snipe, and Dunlin were all observed. With the help of my spotting scope I soon located the Ruff at the far end of the depression, approximently 100 yards from my closest vantage point. My lense was not good enough to get a identifiable photograph, so I took a picture through my spotting scope by setting the end of my camera lense to the eyepiece of the spotting scope and used the scope as a lense extension. After about one hundred photos I was finally able to get a shot that I thought was exceptable. Ruffs are awesome birds. During breeding season they can come in many different colors from pure black, buffy brown, and white. They are an old world breeder which annually strays to the east coast of North America.

Caroline County 4/21/07

Turkey Footprint -- Idlewilde WMA. Field Pansy -- the fields are turning white with these pretty little flowers. Eastern Kingsnake -- Idlewilde WMA just plain AWESOME!


Once again I decided to hit lower Caroline County to see what was emerging and check out what migrant birds had arrived in the past week. Line Road was the first stop and I was a little disapointed with the lack of butterflies and dragonflies. Azures and a few Henry's Elfins were seen along the road. Springtime Darner numbers had dropped drastically although the Lancet Clubtail numbers seemed about the same. Surprisingly I was able to get a photograph of a Red-breasted Nuthatch which dropped down from the top of a pine tree to investigate my terrible Screech Owl impersonation. Red-breasted Nuthatches were real slim this winter in the mid-atlantic so I was pretty amazed to stir one up this Spring. With the lack of activity along Line Road I decided to head down to Smithville Lake and see if there were any dragons or damsels flying around the lake edges. There wasn't. In fact I couldn't find anything until a pair of Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterflies landed a few feet away from the car. In my opinion Eastern Tiger Swallowtails are Delmarva's showiest butterfly. It always nice to see their large yellow wings flying by in the early Spring. Heading towards one of my favorite spots in Idlewilde WMA I caught a glimpse of a swallow sitting on a telephone wire. It turned out to be a Northern Rough-winged Swallow. It sat there and allowed me to get a couple great shots. A short time later while flipping an old piece of ply wood near an abandoned chicken house in an area that is now part of Idlewilde WMA I found one of my greatest finds so far this year -- a beautiful Eastern Kingsnake! Kingsnakes are super rare. You just don't see that many of these elusive snakes. I got some great shots, put him back underneath the plywood, and headed for home.