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| White Ibis, Ocean City Welcome Center |
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| Blackburnian Warbler, Double Trouble SP |
A bifurcated day. Because Shari & I planned to spend the afternoon together, I went to the closest spot where warblers might be for my morning walk, which was Double Trouble. And while it was no Reed's Road, or even Marshall's Pond which had an impressive 16 species of warblers this morning, it was by far my best warbler tally at the park. Maybe I got lucky because I reversed my route, going onto the bogs first and leaving the trail that goes to Ore Pond for last. Or maybe warblers just fell out of the sky. But besides the usual breeders there, like Pine and Prairie Warbler, and I had two year birds, finding a
Wilson's Warbler on Mud Dam Road (where, strangely, the Hooded Warbler was not singing) and a beautiful
Chestnut-sided Warbler in an oak tree near Ore Pond, which also had, feeding on the catkins, a fabulous
Blackburnian Warbler, Pine Warbler,
Blue-headed Vireo, gnatcatcher and two
Downy Woodpeckers who were either vying for territory or a pair looking for a place to nest.
Last year, around this time, in that same tree, I had a Bay-breasted Warbler, so superstitiously, that's the bird I was looking for. I have to admit I gasped when the Chestnut-sided showed up instead. When I saw the Blackburnian later I said to myself that this was one great tree.
I also heard, walking along Mud Dam, listening for the Hooded, "Pizza!" Heard it twice, so I'm counting
Acadian Flycatcher for the year. Also of interest there, were 4
Solitary Sandpipers in the bog behind the packing house, a couple of
Spotted Sandpipers (one at Ore Pond, another by the reservoir on Mud Dam), and a
Snowy Egret behind the packing house.
Great Egret is expected there (I saw 4 today), but you don't find too many Snowys.
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Yellow-crowned Night-Heron standing above its eggs,
Ocean City Welcome Center |
After lunch and after a trip to the dump (it's
fun to throw away junk), Shari & I made our annual visit to the rookery below the causeway to Ocean City. Going midweek instead of on the weekend (or, as we once did, on
July 4th weekend) makes it a pretty quick trip and well worth it, even if you have to elbow the photographers out of the way. They love the photo op but they don't know what they're looking at--no less than 3 photographers asked what those birds with the yellow heads were called although I have to give a pass to the fellow who admitted to being in the early stages of dementia.
If you want to see
Yellow-crowned Night-Herons, this is the place to go, albeit it is sort of like going to the zoo as you peer over the wall down into the rookery. The herons are scattered in the trees, some standing, some bitching at other birds, some nesting. We were fortunate today to see something we hadn't seen before--night-heron eggs. We were able to see into a couple of nests when the birds were standing up or tending to the eggs--one seemed to be turning them. Maybe that's a way of keeping the eggs uniformly warm. The eggs are as blue as a robin's egg but I'd guess about 50% larger.
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| Great Egret, displaying |
We came for the night-heron show but we were hoping for a guest star, and after about a half hour it arrived--the
White Ibis that has been there for last few weeks flew in and stood atop a tree. The photographers clicked away, thinking it was a Great Egret, which were also nesting there. One egret was displaying with its plumes fanned out in all directions, looking like a starburst in the greenery. Our original trip to the Ocean City Welcome Center, almost 4 years ago, was to see a juvenile White Ibis. Shari wondered if this was the same bird, all grown up.
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| Black-crowned Night-Heron |
Other birds in attendance were
Black-crowned Night-Herons, a single
Little Blue Heron, and dozens of
Glossy Ibis. The ibises seemed to be the most active birds, flying in and out in flocks of 10 or so, landing on the branches often too close to a Yellow-crown and getting forcibly moved.
We stayed there for more than hour, outlasting all the photographers. Surprisingly, I didn't see one other birder there. Shari & I spent some time looking through the ibises for a White-faced Ibis which had been photographed there earlier in the day but no red knees or red eyeballs were evident. I got out the scope and scanned the marsh and water beyond but nothing outstanding came into view. Here's my only complaint: the railing above the wall is just the right height to get in the way of the scope's view. You have to position the scope real low (or else be real tall) and look in the space between the railing and the wall in order to see anything.
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Little Blue Heron
Photo: Shari Zirlin |
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Glossy Ibis
Photo: Shari Zirlin |
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