It’s not easy selecting a birding spot at this time of year. The warblers haven’t arrived, nesting is over and it’s kind of a birding doldrums. I decided to try the Eastern shore again, and I started with sunrise at Sandy Point.
I went to Terrapin around 6:15, and it was unusually slow. I spent more time chatting with the ranger than taking pictures. As I was leaving, I met a friend in the parking lot, and we went to CBEC together. I met another friend there, and the three of us spent a couple of hours looking around.
The egrets and herons are still plentiful, and we found a Chipping Sparrow feeding a Cowbird it had raised. Not a great day, but interesting nonetheless.
Sunrise at Sandy Point.
Tri Colored Herons are rare in our area, and they’ve attracted many birders to CBEC.
Cornell: The Brown-headed Cowbird is a stocky blackbird with a fascinating approach to raising its young. Females forgo building nests and instead put all their energy into producing eggs, sometimes more than three dozen a summer. These they lay in the nests of other birds, abandoning their young to foster parents, usually at the expense of at least some of the host’s own chicks. Once confined to the open grasslands of middle North America, cowbirds have surged in numbers and range as humans built towns and cleared woods.”
This Chipping Sparrow has his hands full, trying to raise a Cowbird twice his size.
I see dozens of Red Winged Blackbirds most days, and often pass them by.
We saw only a single Greater Yellowlegs.
Tri Colored Herons are rare in our area, and they’ve attracted many birders to CBEC.
Barn Swallows often forage along the entrance road to CBEC.
This Wood Duck was just sitting still, contemplating the morning.
I saw this Great Blue Heron land in a tree at Terrapin.
Snowy Egrets are still the dominant bird at CBEC.
The Killdeer is very similar to the plovers I’ve been photographing.