This trip has long been one of my favorite winter birding adventures. My general plan is to meet at Indian River Inlet hoping you catch the tide changing to maximize gull activity, then make a stop at Silver Lake in Rehobeth before moving on to Cape Henlopen State Park. At Henlopen there are numerous spots to check but where you go there really depends on how well you did at the inlet and whether or not you need to scan the ocean some more and how long you take finding Brown-headed Nuthatches. From here you make your first big jump north to Broadkill Beach and Prime Hook NWR. Upon leaving the Prime Hook area you always have the option of checking Deep Branch Road, Thirteen Curve Road, or Fowlers Beach Road etc. before making the last big leap to Bombay Hook NWR. Even then there may be stops at Cartanza Road, Port Mahon or Ted Harvey en route. So depending how the day is going you really could be in for a very long and very birdy day with stops at a variety of coastal habitats.

This year ten people joined me on this trip and highlights of this year’s trip included the following working south to north:

At Indian River Inlet and the back bay area there—Common Goldeneye, Bufflehead, Horned Grebe, Herring, Ring-billed, Greater Black-backed and Bonaparte’s Gulls, Sanderling, Ruddy Turnstones and Purple Sandpipers, Northern Gannets, Long-tailed Ducks and the star of the stop 3 Razorbills (good spotting Butch!)

At Silver Lake, the Delaware Dunlins Youth Birding group had gotten to the primary parking area so we went around the block to see the 1000+ Canvasbacks, 100 or so Ruddy Ducks, Mallards, and American Black Ducks. We would run into these young birders and their adult helpers all day, as they would be following pretty much the same route as we were.

Next we stopped at the Cape May-Lewes Ferry Terminal to scan for the Western Grebe that had been frequenting the inlet water for the last few weeks. We parked in the walk on passenger lot and walked to the fence to scan the fence to scan the inlet and found the grebe instantly as it was feeding close to the ferry terminal. Once everyone had gotten outstanding views we moved on to the Seaside Nature Center in Cape Henlopen State Park. The Razorbills now had strong competition for best bird of the trip.

At the Nature Center we again ran into the Delaware Dunlin group. Everyone was taking advantage of the facilities and watching the feeder. Coming to the feeder was Brown-headed Nuthatches (usually one of this trip highlights but now having to fight for 3rd best bird of the trip and it was even lunch yet). We also had Carolina Chickadees, Dark-eyed Juncos, Cedar Waxwings, Tufted Titmice and House Finches including a leucocistic one. Unfortunately, we did not encounter the DIckcissel that had been frequenting the feeder.

After a stop for lunch at Herring Point we continued north with a birding stop at Broadkill Beach for waterfowl, a Bald Eagle and 100,000 of Snow Geese. There had to be a Ross’s Goose in there but WHERE? We also stopped in a Prime Hook NWR but it was a bit quite so we didn’t spend a great deal of time here.

We then drove out along Prime Hook Beach Road where there had been reports of Eurasian Widgeon. We first stopped along one farm field for a lone white goose in with a flock of Canada Geese. It is always worth checking out the aberrant goose in feeding flock like this and I had hoped this was the reported Ross’s Goose from the day before along this road but it was merely a Snow Goose traveling with Canada Geese. There were a few Horned Larks feeding distantly in this field. We did encounter a Northern Harrier as we continued passed all the farm fields and finally came out to the ponds and the waterfowl we were searching for. Here we did find American Widgeon, Northern Pintail, Green-winged Teal, Tundra Swans, and finally 3 Eurasian Widgeon. These were a challenge as one was sleeping and it took awhile for people to see its head, breast and grey flanks amongst the other ducks. The other 2 Eurasian Widgeon came swimming in and out of view. There also were Greater Yellowlegs here. As we drove back to Route 1, there was a pair of Bluebirds on the wires as we turned on to Thirteen Curves Road.

By the time we arrived at Bombay Hook it was close to 4PM and as we all know the afternoon light is tough. The impoundments held lots of the same waterfowl we had been seeing all day plus American Coots, Common Mergansers and an American Bittern feeding along the road at Shearness in the reeds. Most of us had a fleeting look at this on our drive in (once again thanks Butch for alerting us to its presence) and we all saw it really well on the way out (nice spotting Lynn). At Bear Swamp we had Snipe and Killdeer to round out the day.

I think the day lists in my car were in the low to mid-70s for those fixated on numbers and when the discussion of the day’s best bird consists of Razorbill, Western Grebe, Eurasian Widgeon, American Bittern and then Brown-headed Nuthatch your list has quality to it, so does the number really matter?

Thanks to everyone for joining me and for helping find all these great birds. It was a great day birding.

Martin

Photos by Jane Henderson