Wood Duck
Walt Childs and I headed up route 340 towards Elkton to see if there might be any migrating plovers/sandpipers feeding on the sod farm just south of the Merck plant. All we saw there were a few Killdeers. We made a stop at the pond a little farther to the north where we saw a few Wood Ducks and other birds. There was quite a bit of avian activity in the trees on the other side of the highway, but we were looking into the sun and there was too much highway traffic to spend a lot of time there.
Wood Duck
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Eastern Painted Turtles
We then went back to the road along the river south of the Merck plant, and stopped when we heard lots of birds in a couple of the trees. There were Catbirds, Cardinals, Yellow Warblers, Indigo Buntings, and Warbling Vireos. One of the Indigo Buntings had some unusual throat markings, but I think that it was a result of molting.
Indigo Bunting
Indigo Bunting
Catbird
Yellow Warbler
Yellow Warbler
I was watching a Carolina Wren across the road when a large (female?), juvenile, Cooper's Hawk made a close fly-by.
Carolina Wren
Cooper's Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
We ended the trip with about 25 species.