Hi Folks,

Last year I did my first-ever big day in Prince George's County, joining Rob
Ostrowski, Fred Shafer, and Dave Mazurkavich for an excellent day of birding
that exciting county.  That got me thinking about a big day in my home
county of Anne Arundel, and I began almost immediately planning a route for
such an event.  This year my first AA County big day was supposed to take
place on Wednesday, 4 May, while most of my students were taking their AP
calculus exams.  I would have just one partner, Ed Carlson,  but alas, it
rained until after noon that day, and we had canceled the evening before,
knowing that it would be awfully soggy out there.  So, Ed and I rescheduled
for Saturday, 7 May, which made a huge difference, because not only was the
weather just about a perfect 10 that day, but we would now have the man with
the bionic ears, Bill Hubick, joining us, so our big day tally probably
jumped 15 species right there.  It was a superb day of birding.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The team of Bill Hubick, Ed Carlson and Stan Arnold tallied a total of 135
species within Anne Arundel County on 7 May 2011.  We assembled at 2:50 a.m.
at Stan's house, arrived at Dent Road at 3:45 a.m., and had our kayaks in
the water by 4:05 a.m.  The day ended at 9:35 p.m. along Marley Neck Blvd in
an unsuccessful attempt to add Chuck-will's Widow to our list.  The
highlights:  AMERICAN BITTERN, AMERICAN WIGEON, and WILSON'S WARBLER, and an
exceptional NINE species of duck.  The lowlights:  missing Pileated
Woodpecker, Grasshopper Sparrow and Lesser Yellowlegs, a total lack of rails
and nightjars, and ony 16 species of warbler, showcasing an overall lack of
migrants; also, missing were quite a few good birds that had been staked out
the day or two prior.

DETAILS

The plan was to begin the day of birding with a good hour of darkness at
Dent Road, and 2-3 hours of kayaking to look for birds that would be found
nowhere else.  While Ed and Stan unloaded the kayaks from the car, Bill
picked up the first bird of the day, a calling flyover Swainson's Thrush.
We had two kayaks and three eager birders in the water by 4:05 a.m.,
scanning the shoreline by flashlight.  In the almost total darkness we heard
a pair of Barred Owls calling spontaneously, listened to the Barn Swallows
chattering among the reeds, and had an Osprey fly over our heads.  As
twilight approached, the Common Yellowthroats and Red-winged Blackbirds
began stirring with their pre-dawn vocalizations.  Bill Heard a Least
Bittern calling, but Ed and Stan would have to wait till the return trip to
see one descending into the reeds.  We paddled the same route that Stan had
paddled a year earlier with Dan Haas (and finding two Saltmarsh Sparrows,
which luck was not with us this year).  As the sun broke above the horizon,
during our return trip, we began to get some of the "good" birds.  Ed made
the first great find of the day when he spotted an AMERICAN BITTERN flying
up out of the marsh.  Stan was able to add a couple of miss-able birds by
spotting a Red-breasted Merganser and a flyover Common Loon.  Bill came up
with an unexpected find when he heard a woodcock doing a display flight, and
all of us could eventually here the wing whistles.  Other highlights of the
outing were at least five Seaside Sparrows and two singing Yellow-throated
Warblers on opposite sides of a lagoon.

After loading the kayaks back on the car, we left Dent Road with 58 species
on the tally sheet.  We did a quick tour of a neighborhood along Columbia
Beach Rd., adding a lot of suburban birds to the tally, and headed towards
Jug Bay to look for warblers.  By the time we arrived at Glendening Nature
Preserve, we had 70 species on the list, and here we added Yellow-billed
Cuckoo, our only Worm-eating Warbler of the day, and the first-of-year Pewee
for all three of us.  We then crossed the street to the Jug Bay Wetlands
Sanctuary.

Anne Arundel County is fairly inhospitable to birding, and I don't blame
folks for not wanting to go birding here.  With little accessible public
land, and few opportunities for road-side birding, it is quite unlike the
easy-to-bird Eastern Shore, and for a big day in this county one is required
to do a lot of walking.  That's exactly what we did at Jug Bay, and over a
three-hour period we hiked nearly four miles through this exceptional
birding venue, but the payoff was commensurate with the energy expended.
One of our first birds here was critical--an Eastern Phoebe--a bird we would
doubtfully find elsewhere (which held to be true).  We took our scopes to
the observation deck, and here Bill spotted our next great find, a pair of
AMERICAN WIGEONs.  This bird is scarce in AA County any day of the year, but
to get it in May was exceptional, and I doubt the county, or even the state,
has many May records.  Also of note from the overlook were 14 American Coots
and a singing Prothonotary Warbler, a bit out of place here.  We hiked out
to the farm and Otter Point, picking up a variety of new birds, including
our first White-throated Sparrow, and noting at least three singing
Yellow-throated Warblers.  Also of significance was a male Summer Tanager
popping out onto an open snag, entertaining us with close views and terrific
singing for more than five minutes.

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