Acting on a tip from Jim Stasz, I returned to North Beach Marsh and relocated a
juvenile Little Blue Heron. I could see dark primary tips when it was facing me
and you could see the underside of the folded wing. This is a bird that I had on
my Calvert list without a date. I know that I had seen one at Jefferson
Patterson Park between 1994 and 2004 but that didn't do me any good when I was
trying to put it into eBird ;)
Anyway, the number of Snowy Egrets was down hugely which made finding the LBHe a
lot easier. There were only 8 SNEGs, one Great Egret, zero Great Blues, 2
Tricolored Herons and TWO Yellow-crowned Night-herons. They were both in the
creek that drains the marsh into the Bay. One was sitting in Calvert on the
bayside, the other in Anne Arundel on the marsh side.
Shorebirds were similar to recent reports with lots of peeps of the Semi-p and
Least flavor, 2 Semi-p Plovers, Killdeer and one Pectoral Sandpiper which I
found on one sweep but couldn't relocate after David Bridge arrived. Lots of
Forster's Terns flying around and 15 Least Terns sitting on the mudflat.
It was a lot more pleasant today than in the past with a stiff breeze blowing to
the south based on the flag near the Purple Martin colony at the end of Rt. 260.
Tyler Bell
California, Maryland
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