I spent the past few days birding and mainly photographing at Chincoteague. It
was a good trip with nice weather, but a bit windy, which helped me take good
photos of birds in flight. I headed for the coast on Tuesday - stopping at the
Bay Bridge. There was a Black Scoter and Surf Scoter hanging out off the
jetty. There were Royal Terns, a few Spotted Sandpipers, Least Sandpipers, and
Sanderlings and of course the parking lot Ruddy Turnstones. On the Bridge, I
ran into Brian Taber, who was in search of an albatross (don't know if he was
able to track it down). Brian gave me directions to the Scissor-tailed
Flycatcher that was near Kiptopeke. It was right where Brian said it would be
(as a note, I did not find it this morning - Friday).
At Chincoteague, I checked for the Gull-billed Terns at Queens Sound Landing -
not present on Tuesday, present on Wednesday, not present on TH or Fri.
Black-necked Stilts were along the causeway from the mainland to the islands.
At the Refuge, they are paving the main road out to the beach - a bit of a
mess. Along the causeway to the beach there were numerous SB Dowitchers,
Dunlin, Semipalmated PL, Semipalmated SP, a few BB Plovers, gulls, Forster's
terns, a few Least Terns, Piping Plovers, Oystercatchers, and Skimmers. There
were lots and lots of shore birds in the wildlife loop, but most were at a
distance. Many herons and egrets along the Wildlife loop.
Over the next few days I'll be posting photos from my trip. If you're
interested I've posted photos of the Scissor-tailed FL, BB Plover, Dunlin,
Piping PL on my Flickr site.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/vmibiology/
Dick Rowe
VMI Biology Dept
