Sep 07 2008
TS Hanna, round 1
Here’s a quick tour of yesterday’s birding during Tropical Storm Hanna:
Sharon Lynn scans offshore from Cape Henlopen
Forrest Rowland, Bill Stewart, and Judy Montgomery watch millions of dollars of beach replenishment sand get washed back out to sea in Rehoboth.
Property damage was mostly minor…
Surfers at Indian River Inlet (cue “Wipe Out” for the soundtrack).
A Forster’s (L) and 4 Common Terns take a break on the beach.
Many of the terns and all of the birders at Indian River Inlet sought refuge under the Route 1 bridge. The sign in the upper left warns boaters not to attach lines to the conduit on the pylons. Violators are threatened with prosecution. Liz opined that electrocution would be a much more effective and accurate threat.
Despite a good deal of searching, we found little in the way of storm waifs. The most excitement was spotting this dark, odd-looking bird, which made us hope we might have stumbled upon a juvenile Sooty Tern. Alas, a closer look revealed it as a dark, messy-looking Laughing Gull, perhaps a bit behind the others (see out of focus birds at right and center front) in molt. We did have one Parasitic Jaegar fly over the boardwalk in Rehoboth.
Mostly, we just saw the regular birds like this Ruddy Turnstone riding out the rather mild storm. We’re leaving right now (6 AM) to see if we can find any storm-tossed birds heading back out the mouth of Delaware Bay. Wish us luck!
