Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 08:28:35 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Lovelace, Glen (DelDOT)" Subject: FW: [de-birds] My Christmas Count Experience- Part 1 (long) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Hello All, As some of you may already know, my wife Shelly and I are expecting our first child in April. Realizing that birding time will be at a premium (or non-existent) when the baby comes along, I wanted to do as many Christmas Counts as I could since I may not have opportunity again for some time in the future. To that end, I participated in 9 counts this year. I could have done 10, but decided that going off on a bird count on Shelly's birthday was not such a good idea. Besides, that turned out to be the monsoon day with the northeaster at the beginning of the count period and would have been miserable. I also got the notion that I would compile a list of the species seen throughout the counts. I knew that I would be birding in a variety of habitats, inland and coastal, ponds, woodlands and fields, from as far north as Milford and Denton to as far south as Chincoteague. I thought 120 species would be a reasonable total across all the counts. My first count was Denton on Dec 20th. I birded the area around Hobbs out toward Burrsville and Hickman. I was familiar with a couple of roads in the area, but most of it was north of my atlas blocks and therefore new territory. I was very pleased with 60 species in a new area, an inland territory without ponds. The highlights were White-Breasted Nuthatch and Hairy Woodpecker which turned out to be the only ones that I had on any count. A dusk watch similar to those I have conducted recently at Oak Grove yielded flyover swans and 4 Black Duck. Only later did I find out that there was a Black-Headed Gull at the Denton WWTP (see that story in a separate MDOsprey post). Next up was Salisbury on Dec 21st where I have birded with Charlie Vaughn in the Whitehaven area for several years and have now taken over the territory. It was a slow day for birds as there were long stretches of the day with little activity. Waterfowl was really off for the count as a whole (no Snow Geese, no Ring-Necked Duck) and I wound up with the only Canvasback. My best birds were a Yellowthroat at Ellis Bay Wildlife Area and a flyby Great Egret near Whitehaven, but both were duplicated for the count. High on the list of appropriately named roads is Muddy Hole Rd. Once upon a time it had groups of 6-8 Hermit Thrush per stop before some of it was logged a few years ago. Apparently Hurricane Isabel trashed the road (high tide came to the road normally) and each end now boasts signs that read "Road Closed - Travel at Your Own Risk". I was not that brave and wound up walking what I could of the road, though I am sure Charlie would have tried to get through. Luckily, the alternate route to Ellis Bay was easily passable so that I could tally Virginia Rail, Harrier, GH Owl and a dusk flight of Green-Winged Teal (odd for this location). I had 65 species (67 total for the area). On Dec 26th, I began my run of 5 counts in 5 days. Never having done this before (I have done 4 consecutive), I was unsure what my endurance level would be. First up was the South Dorchester count, where I helped Paul Spitzer with the Elliott's Island territory. It was a nice day though the wind was a bit chilly. We had a good variety of ducks such as large rafts of Canvasback and Ruddy Duck (plus Lesser Scaup and a Surf Scoter) on Fishing Bay and 39 Common Merganser on Savannah Lake. Shorebirds were good with both yellowlegs, Dunlin, a Snipe and a Long-billed Dowitcher. A good sparrow day with Chippers, Fox and White-Crowned. Also a very rusty Rusty Blackbird. We ended the day with 3 Short-Eared Owls and 6 Virginia Rails calling. I saw 70 species (72 total for the area). I ticked 4 Dorchester Co. birds to finally pass 200. Crisfield was on Dec 27th where I help Charlie Vaughn on his territory that includes Vessey's Orchard and areas along the north side of the Pocomoke River between Pocomoke and Rehoboth, MD. We always begin the day watching the eagles fly away from the roost near Pocomoke. Around dawn, we saw about 30 eagles, mostly adults. But an hour later, this steady stream of immatures begins drifting by. It ends at 38 immature eagles. Added to the 20 adults we had earlier, that was at least 58 eagles! A very enjoyable spectacle. Around Vessey's, I had another single Rusty Blackbird, another Snipe flushed from the edge of a pond, my only Palm Warblers, and a Short-Eared Owl that our party flushed several times as we went around the orchard. That is only the second Short-Eared Owl that I have seen on Delmarva that was away from a marsh. At a spot on private property nearby, we had House, Winter and Carolina Wrens all in one group. Late in the afternoon, my right leg began aching from 2 days of a lot of walking and I began to wonder what it would be like at the end of the 5 day run. But some rest (i.e. birding from the car) and the heating pad that night solved the problem. Milford was on Dec. 28th. What a wonderful day it was weather-wise. Since I am the compiler of this count, I exercise my prerogative to be a floater to cover some otherwise uncovered bits of the circle. I started with a dawn baywatch at the end of Bennetts Pier Rd. Waterfowl was scarce, but I did have a Marsh Wren and 2 Brown Thrashers (but that was a pittance to what the other bayside parties had). Then I covered the Kent County Wastewater Treatment Plant. While they do not have any ponds to draw waterfowl, they are surrounded by a lot of weeds and brush that was swarming with sparrows (50+ Songs, 1 White-Crowned) and a Yellowthroat mixed in. I then covered part of the Penuel Tract of Milford Neck Wildlife Area and tallied lots more sparrows. I then checked the ponds and puddles southwest of Milford. I saw the Wood Duck on Griffith Lake and the Osprey at Abbott's Mill Pond that had been found by each area's respective party (but new to my personal list). At Rust Rd, I found a Long-billed Dowitcher for a Sussex Co. bird. Back out on Bennett's Pier Rd to end the day, I found a Purple Finch to add to my list. Andy Ednie told me that the owls were as talkative as he had ever heard that morning. It continued that evening as I heard Great Horned, Screech and (I believe) a Long-Eared all calling spontaneously along Bennett's Pier Rd. By bouncing around, this was my most successful single day with 81 species. Chincoteague was up next on Dec. 29th. Once again, I help Charlie Vaughn with his area on the Wallop's Island base. I have always enjoyed birding an otherwise inaccessible area, but post 9/11, it now means that you have to deal with security issues. [Insert your own opinion on such issues here] Normally, we cover (by splitting into several groups) the mainland base in the morning and the island itself in the afternoon, catching lunch on the way. But being that the nation was at orange alert, we had to have an escort this year and remain in one group with our escort. Also, Charlie had talked with our escort about going out in his boat to areas around the north end of the island that we cannot normally see from land. All this was going to vastly change our normal routine. Nor did all come together as smoothly as planned and it was 10 AM by the time we got out on the boat and really started birding. Even though I am a lifelong Delmarva resident, I was a farm boy and have very little experience around the water. I was bit apprehensive about the whole boat idea, but once we got out there, it was completely different Christmas Count experience than I had had before. Our guide was completely familiar with the area and would ground us on the edge of a sandbar so that we could use the scope in the boat to look at the shorebirds. We wound up landing and walking on the sandbar that is offshore from Wallop's (where I normally have to strain to see the shorebirds through the scope from the beach of Wallop's). The shorebirds were wonderful with 2000+ Dunlin, Sanderling, 120 Oystercatcher, 25 BB Plover, 4 Willet, 4 Ruddy Turnstone, 6 Western Sandpiper and a Red Knot (VA state bird). Other good birds were both loons, a Great Cormorant, 2000+ Brant, Surf and Black Scoter, 4 Greater Scaup (another VA state bird), Catbird and Boat-Tailed Grackle. Out of our normal pattern for the territory, we were without lunch. We were much closer to Chincoteague by boat than anything by boat and then land, so we went to Chincoteague for lunch at Bill's Seafood and then took the boat back to the island. We hoped to cash in on the day before's redpoll flight along the dunes on Wallop's, but could not find any such wonderful thing. For the alternate birding approach, we got 60 species and missed many that we would have gotten on the mainland base. So what? It turned out different than any other Christmas Count experience. Seaford on Dec 30th. By now the new routine was old hat. To bed by 10, up at 5 AM and off to bird somewhere different. Unfortunately, it was one of those Delmarva weather days - if you don't like it, wait 5 minutes and it will change. I knew going in to the 5 in a row that there was no way that there would be 5 consecutive days of perfect weather in late December. Owling was useless in a stiff southwest breeze and then the intermittent rain started about 6:45 AM. Getting out of the car during a lull proved to be a sure-fire way for it to start raining again. The rain finally ended and by 10:30 it was perfectly clear. There was an hour and a half window of nice weather before the front came through and the west wind picked up. Portions of the day were devoid of birds. I wound up with the lowest count for my area in several years (53 species) and the only things I accomplished were a Catbird (new for my area) and a high count of GW Teal. The success of the count rests fully on the other participants. Dec 31 - chased the Black-Headed Gull at Denton WWTP (see separate post), checked Rust Rd puddles hoping for a count week pickup for the Milford count and found a new puddle on Clendaniel Rd that held the only Pintail (375 of them) that I saw during the count period. Oak Grove on Jan 1 - I ran a mini count in my home circle at Oak Grove, making the effort to count all birds that I do not always do. Tallied 46 species (see separate post). Rehoboth CBC on Jan 3rd. Technology caused a large logistical snafu. My answering machine ate messages telling me that I was to be the only one covering the South Bethany/Cedar Neck territory. To further complicate matters, I forgot the cell phone that day. I spent as much time looking for birders as birds. I will apologize again here to Joe and Andy for messing up the coverage of this area. When I was looking for birds, I had Forster's Terns, a Gannet and Bonaparte's Gulls (the only ones for the all counts list) in a sunrise seawatch. The seawatch also gave me the best bird I saw on any of the counts. A single Dovekie flew by, heading south. Fingers crossed, hopefully this will be accepted. At Cedar Neck, there was a large flock of Brant (estimated at 1250), 27 BB Plover and 90 Dunlin at midday. James Farm preserve had a nice collection of sparrows including 6 Chippers. Cape Henlopen on Jan 4th - I covered the Wolfe Neck Wastewater Treatment Plant and the portion of the Gordon's Pond territory on the west side of the canal. While parts of this area are now more accessible with all of the new parkland on Wolfe Neck, the rest of it is becoming a wasteland for birds. Several small patches of habitat where I used to find some birds sprouted houses this year. The treatment plant held its usual complement of ducks - Shoveler (only ones for the all count list), Bufflehead and Ruddies and it often accounts for a good portion of these for the count. The highlight from the parkland was another Catbird. About the only birds I found west of Rt 1 was a nice mixed flock on Webb Landing Rd that included a Pine Warbler. The boat trip was a nice diversion and added Purple Sandpiper and Lesser Black-backed Gull to the all counts list. When it was all done, I had amassed a list of 129 species seen on the 9 Christmas Counts + 3 more seen during the count period (Laughing Gull at Oak Grove on Christmas Eve, the BH Gull and the Pintail). There were still several seemingly easy or birds seen on previous counts that I missed - Horned Grebe, Pintail, Redhead, White-Winged Scoter, American Coot, Merlin, Rough-legged Hawk, Barred Owl, Wild Turkey, Bobwhite, Tree Swallow and Red-Breasted Nuthatch. 24 species were seen on only one count, including Hairy Woodpecker, White-Breasted Nuthatch and Brown Creeper - all seen on Denton the first day. On the common end, there were 19 species seen on all 9 counts. The most unexpected of those were Winter Wren and Swamp Sparrow. Also interesting was the lack of Snow Geese until the 5th count, the scarcity of Grackles, at least 3 counts with only 1 Blue Jay tallied and several good birds re-produced on more than one count. Good Birding, Glen Lovelace III Seaford, DE ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================