It is quite amazing how individual each morning's sunrise is. This morning the sun rose all rosy and pink above puffy clouds and puffs of mist rising up from the bay, creek, the pond and even the open water area in the middle of the marsh. The dampness -- from rain in the night and a tremendous fall of dew -- was on every leaf and blade of grass but the sky was clear and blue for at the least the first few hours of the morning.
This was the first morning when there were numbers of Yellow-rumped (a.k.a. Myrtle) Warblers about but the influx was still way below the fall-outs of years past. Other warblers seen were Common Yellowthroat, Pine and Blackpoll. There were many Swamp Sparrows along with the usual Song and a few sparrows of undetermined flavor and vintage. Some American Goldfinches but nothing like the recent flocks of either Goldfinches or Siskins. But the following were also seen: Winter Wren, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Red-breasted Nuthatches (probably White-breasted too), Eastern Phoebe, N Flicker, Hairy, Downy & Red-bellied Woodpecker, Royal Tern on the creek.
Perhaps the most exciting moment was early in the morning when I first went out into the marsh. A medium-size rail flushed twice making a twittering noise as it flew up and dropped back down, both times too quick for me to get the binoculars up. The elongated shape indicated Virginia Rail rather than Sora and I'll just leave it at that.
Eric Salzman
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