I took advantage of the nice weather this morning to do cleaning and maintenance of my Prothonotary Warbler nest boxes along Old Sunbury Road north to the Pelican Island mudflats. I was pleasantly surprised to find 11 nest boxes with Prothonotary Warbler nests. One however had five unhatched eggs. I skipped one box as the biggest hornets I've seen around there were active in and out of a cavity in the tree. That box will have to wait until the winter's killer frost takes care of them for me. I also counted seven boxes missing, likely from severe storms this fall. At one area four boxes set up to form a territory and the trees they were mounted to were gone. Another location had lost three our of four nest boxes. Both areas have historically been productive so new boxes will be installed. Overall though it was a great year for the Prothonotary Warblers along this stretch.
This area does have its distractions. From the Eastshore Yacht Club north to the second old bridge I counted 10 Red-headed Woodpeckers. At the second or more northerly old bridge there are two territories that are very close. We watched as the four adults chased each other around and sounded off. They were raising quite a ruckus and put n a show.
The mudflats off this section of shoreline is now heavily into shorebirds habitat. There was a nice selection of species working the flats. This included Killdeer, Semipalmated Plover, Greater Yellowlegs, Lesser Yellowlegs, Solitary Sandpiper, Spotted Sandpiper, Sanderling, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, Baird's Sandpiper, Pectoral Sandpiper, Stilt Sandpiper and Short-billed Dowitcher.
Further out towards the reservoir there were many Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets and a Green Heron. A sand bar had loads of Ring-billed Gulls with a couple of Caspian Terns.
Several adult Bald Eagles were constantly doing flyovers and one landed on a dead tree branch very close to us. Surprisingly there was very little songbird activity in the area.
Charlie Bombaci

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