Road Scholar - Birding Delaware's Seashore and Refuges Spring 2014

Spring has been hiding, as have the birds, but we still managed to record 92 species of birds in the past two days of cold temps, strong east winds, and lots of rain. About 10 species were only heard, the rest were also seen, and most seen well.

Our first day was at Trap Pond State Park, and included a Pontoon boat trip. Our second day was at Bombay Hook NWR, and included a tactical success having lunch on the bus because of heavy rain.

Highlight birds the past 2 days have been good looks at: Prothonotary Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler, Louisiana Water-thrush, Least Bittern, Black-crowned Night-Heron, several Bald Eagles, Black-necked Stilts, Blue-winged Teal........ and hearing the songs of Blue-winged Warbler, Marsh Wren, and Yellow-throated Vireo.

Again, thanks to Ed Crawford and John Hoyt for helping in Sally's absence due to her wrist injury.

Drying off and warming up,
Bill

 PS - RE: Name of Prothonotary Warbler, from Wikipedia:

• The name "Prothonotary" refers to clerks in the Roman Catholic church, whose robes were bright yellow.

Road Scholar Field Trip to Trap Pond 4/30/13

Trap Pond, DE State Parks photo

We began our 4-day Road Scholar program at Trap Pond State Park in southeastern Delaware. Temperatures were in the 50’s with light rain falling and a strong east wind. Even so, all enjoyed a pontoon boat excursion on the pond, captained by park ranger Will Koth. Highlights were excellent views of the extensive Bald Cypress stand, and good views of Prothonotary Warbler, Eastern Kingbird, and Osprey.

We had split into two groups, and each group also walked the Island Trail while the other group was on the pontoon boat. On the trail a Louisiana Waterthrush, which a lucky few also saw, serenaded both groups and one group had elbow-rubbing looks at both a male and female Prothonatary Warbler.

Will Koth was kind enough to let us have lunch in the Nature Center, even setting up chairs and tables. From Trap Pond we went to the coast and up to Indian River Inlet, where we braved the cold east winds, but no rain, to see many Northern Gannets, and some Red-throated and Common Loons, Forester’s and Common Terns, and a real treat of a Horned Grebe in breeding plumage.

If you want to view any of the above-mentioned birds, go to:

http://birds.audubon.org/birds/prothonotary-warbler and type the bird’s name into the search bar. It will give you a list to click-on your desired link. Try to find the link that goes to an Audubon page like the Prothonotary Warbler page, and note there are 5 or more different photos from VIREO to view of your selected bird.

Our first day tallied 55 species, many of which we did not see again. I will post a summary of day 2 to Bombay Hook and the DuPont Nature Center at Mispillion next.