On May 5, 2012, the Kent County Bird Club led a bird walk around our Chestertown, MD, bed and breakfast for the second time. The previous birding in Maryland outing was last October: “Birding at Brampton.“ According to Walter Ellison, the leader of the club, “These weekends would give us a good feel for the birding potential of the grounds during fall and spring migration seasons.” It was nearly a year ago that I started talking to Walter about offering a guided walk to the Brampton Inn bed and breakfast guests as part of a birding themed package. We are still working on it (in part by conducting these walks) and hope to offer it this fall. In the meantime, here is a list of the species seen during our latest outing:
Mallard 3 Great Blue Heron 1 Black Vulture 2 Turkey Vulture 7 Bald Eagle 3 Cooper's Hawk 2 Solitary Sandpiper 1 Chimney Swift 4 Ruby-throated Hummingbird 1 Red-bellied Woodpecker 3 Downy Woodpecker 2 Hairy Woodpecker 2 Red-eyed Vireo 5 American Crow 2 Fish Crow 1 Purple Martin 2 Tree Swallow 5 Barn Swallow 3 Carolina Chickadee 2 Tufted Titmouse 1 Carolina Wren 8 American Robin 4 Gray Catbird 3 Northern Mockingbird 5 Brown Thrasher 1 European Starling 14 Cedar Waxwing 12 Northern Waterthrush 1 Common Yellowthroat 7 Cape May Warbler 1 (Singing and briefly seen in top of tall balsam fir.) Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) 2 Yellow-breasted Chat 4 Chipping Sparrow 5 Grasshopper Sparrow 3 Northern Cardinal 10 Blue Grosbeak 9 Indigo Bunting 9 Red-winged Blackbird 12 Common Grackle 20 Baltimore Oriole 3 American Goldfinch 6 House Sparrow 1
The photo at the top of this post is of two Cedar Waxwings, one of my personal favorite birds. A few days after the Eastern Shore bird walk with Walter and the bird club, I was walking around with my binoculars, and Sidney, the dog, who is a fine birding companion as he is not much of a barker and content to sit while I stare up at the trees; we came upon a flock of Cedar Waxwings that have been hanging around our Chestertown MD Inn and watched for 10 minutes while two birds performed a little courtship dance! They pass a berry back and forth to one another and take little hops to and fro on the branch where they are perched. It was incredible to see.
And it was right there in our very own Chestertown, MD, backyard.