edm@vrdxhq.verdix.com (Ed Matthews) (02/20/91)
[Thanks to everyone who sent me advice on where to bird in OC -- Ed] My wife and I made the trek over to Ocean City, Maryland this weekend: it's a little less than four hours due east and south of our house in Northern Virginia. Did we pick a warm weekend or what? Saturday morning I was out the door at seven and my first stop was the series of three ponds on Griffin Road. Not much of interest there, but there were hundreds of CANADA GEESE and gulls. Scanning the gulls on the sandbar in the third pond was not rewarding, except for the mixed flock of GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLETS and YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS scurrying about in the foreground. Driving further down Griffin Road yielded three TREE SWALLOWS, which I believe is a very early sighting for this location. From there, it was on to West Ocean City Pond on Golf Course Road which had very little open water. The resident flock of CANVASBACKS was up on the ice, still asleep for the most part. The west wind was too fierce to stay long enough to scan for Redheads. It was on over the Sinepuxent Bay into Ocean City inlet where it was really cold. How cold was it? It was so cold that when it warmed up to 22 degrees F in the afternoon, it felt balmy by comparison. The gulls were in really close, but it was too rough and too damned cold to search for anything for long. Among the ever-present RING-BILLED GULLS were many BONAPARTE'S GULLS and HERRING GULLS. Moving on to the 4th street flats, it was too nasty to look for birds. The constant 25+ knot wind coupled with gusts kept my binocs, face, and hands covered with spray. At 10 degrees F, I opted for the car. On up the beach at the Delaware state line is the Assawoman State Wildlife Refuge which was absolutely dead. All the water close in was frozen over and what waterfowl there were, were way out on the water. For the whole forty-five minutes I was there, I tallied 6 AMERICAN BLACK DUCKS, 2 PINTAILS, 2 SONG SPARROWS, and a lone NORTHERN HARRIER who seemed to be enjoying all the wind. On the return trip to Ocean City, I kept stopping and looking at the sparrows in all the hedgerows, hoping for something a little different than I see at home. No luck: every bird was a Song Sparrow. On the way back to Ocean Pines where we stayed the weekend, I saw 8-10 BLACK VULTURES circling at low altitude by the pond at Ocean Pines. I pulled over and watched them wheel over my car at about 15 feet off the ground. As they turned into the morning sun, I could really see the white/grey parts of the undersides of their wings. There were several AMERICAN COOTS on the pond amongst the domestic geese and Ring-Billed Gulls. At lunch time, we decided to head down to Chincoteague NWR to catch the low tide on the causeway and the opening at 3 p.m. of the Snow Goose Pool loop to cars. On the way out the door, I saw a HERMIT THRUSH on the ground about ten feet from me. It was very casual about my presence and I was able to get my binocs on it as it foraged about. I've never before seen a Hermit Thrush that trusting. On the Chincoteague causeway, there wasn't much, especially compared to the summer when you can stand in one spot and see two dozen species. We turned off the causeway at the oyster bars for the obligatory look at the AMERICAN OYSTERCATCHERS. There were only two and a lone LESSER YELLOWLEGS, which was joined by a second on the return trip. There was a lone male HOODED MERGANSER to the north of the causeway in the deeper water. In the park, we stopped at the visitor center to check the sighting log. Nothing good, but a couple there at the same time reported seeing a BLACK-HEADED GULL and gave us directions. We missed the gull on the way out, but got it on the return trip. This was my first ABA area sighting, but it was just like the hundreds I saw in England and Ireland this past fall. The most common birds on the way out to Tom's Cove were WHISTLING SWANS, Canada Geese, and Ring-Billed Gulls. At the Bath House in one of the pools where the Night Herons usually hang out in the summer was a male OLDSQUAW. For a bird that you usually only get to see in a scope, this was an amazing sight at 15 feet away. He was the most beautifully colored one I have ever seen and was quite the cooperative gentleman for the camera hounds, sitting full upright in the water and fluffing out his feathers for each photographer. On the way back to the Snow Goose Pool, we stopped to admire some obliging GREAT BLUE HERONS and as we were watching, an AMERICAN KESTREL flew up and perched on the power line above our heads. The loop around the pool had a few more ducks, including some GREEN-WINGED TEAL with the green patches on their heads gleaming in the sun. Other than that, it was mostly swans, hundreds of swans. I saw one Tree Swallow; a few were reported there last weekend. On the causeway going back we saw 6 Hooded Mergansers, 5 female and a single male. For the record, we saw maybe 100 ponies and thirty Sika deer, but no Delmarva Fox Squirrels. On Sunday 17 February, I went back to OC Inlet early in the morning and crossing over the Route 50 bridge, saw two GREATER BLACK-BACKED GULLS perched on the light poles. There were two other birders there. We scoped out a flock of ~20 BUFFLEHEADS and 16-20 PURPLE SANDPIPERS on the North jetty. One of them reported two Black-Headed Gulls off the end of the North jetty. An old man wandered up and said that he had seen about thirty people with scopes at the inlet the afternoon and wondered, "What on earth are you looking at?" The large number of folks was due to a number of alcids being seen the weekend before. I can report that there are no alcids at OC now and locals told me that there haven't been any seen since last Monday. From there I went back to the 4th street flats and met a group of birders from Annapolis MD, who were on their way to Chincoteague. We were scoping the BRANTS and the Oystercatchers when a flock of 20-30 CEDAR WAXWINGS flew into a nearby tree. Back out to West Ocean City pond, I saw 12 Great Blue Herons standing in a row, seemingly asleep. It was warm enough to search the Canvasbacks for Redheads: no luck. There were a pair of NORTHERN SHOVELERS doing what might have been a mating ritual. They were face-to-face and a little offset so that they were also head-to-head except that their bills were in the water. They appeared to be touching each other. They kept swimming in counterclockwise circles with their bills in the water. Have you ever seen this behavior before? Among the ducks were a pair of Coots and among the Ring-Billed Gulls were three Greater Black-Backs. As I was leaving, a pair of AMERICAN WIGEONS flew in. A return trip to the inlet after lunch and a stroll along the beach in the comparatively balmy 46 degree weather yielded a RUDDY TURNSTONE right at my feet and a RED-BREASTED MERGANSER pretty far out. I only saw it for a second before it dove and was gone. I saw a Scoter/Eider on the far side of the South jetty, but the water was too rough and it dove before I could get a scope on it. On Monday the 18th, I made a quick trip to the Sinepuxent Bay going south down route 611 (the road to Assateague) and turning east (left) at route 707 and proceeding until it dead-ended at the bay. I wanted to bird some pine barrens/scrub for Pine Warblers and Sparrows before I left. As I walked out on the sand, a group of gulls came over to investigate and see if I had any handouts. Of the dozen gulls, eleven were Ring Bills and one was a Black-Headed, quite a surprise. The pine scrub behind the beach was full of warblers, Yellow-Rumped, not Pine as I had hoped. It was here that I saw the mystery gull. It attracted my attention by being whiter than all the Ring-Billed Gulls that it was with. It was the same size as a Ring-Bill and of the same basic shape, especially the tail. The tail feathers were all white. The bill was dark; I did not see the eye. The wings were really different and reminded me of Tern's wings. The leading half of the wing was gray, the trailing half white. There was a line of black on the tips of the primaries running about two thirds of the length of the wing. The bird was bigger than a Bonaparte's Gull, but it is the gull whose wings seem most similar in my mind, but they were equally white and gray and the black streak was much longer. I did not see the underside of the bird. Ideas anyone? Not a bad weekend. -- Ed Matthews edm@verdix.com Verdix Corporation Headquarters (703) 378-7600 Chantilly, Virginia
mjm@oliven.olivetti.com (Michael Mammoser) (02/21/91)
In article <46936@vrdxhq.verdix.com>, edm@vrdxhq.verdix.com (Ed Matthews) writes: > > There were a pair of > NORTHERN SHOVELERS doing what might have been a mating ritual. They > were face-to-face and a little offset so that they were also > head-to-head except that their bills were in the water. They appeared > to be touching each other. They kept swimming in counterclockwise > circles with their bills in the water. Have you ever seen this > behavior before? Bent's Life Histories of North American Wildfowl says of the courtship of the Northern Shoveler: "He swims slowly up to her, uttering a low guttural croak,... and at the same time elevating his head and neck and jerking his bill upwards. The female then bows in recognition, and both proceed to swim slowly round in circles, one behind the other,with the water running through their bills." During the Christmas Bird Counts, I witnessed what I considered very unusual behavior for Northern Shovelers: four birds diving, apparently for food. From a swimming position, the birds would lunge forward, thrusting their heads into the water, half spreading their wings and digging them into the water to pull themselves under. They remained completely submerged for about 20 to 30 seconds. Consider what Bent says: "The shoveller is more essentially a surface feeder than any other duck.... The shoveller seldom tips up to feed by semi immersion, but paddles quickly along, skimming the surface, with its head half submerged..." Interesting. Mike