Saturday Morning Birding

     Got myself out of bed at 0600, ate breakfast and headed to Metrobeach... Met Tom Heatley, Kevin Rysiewski near the day sail area where we listened for rails... We heard none, but while we were there, a Wilson's Snipe landed right in front of us.... We watched it for a couple of minutes until it took flight and then we headed over to the beach area.... No Sandpipers, just some Bonaparte Gulls and assorted birds on the beach.... we headed over to the Nature Center trails and were met by Wayne Hoch... The 4 of us birded the trails together, highlighted by my first Sora (113) of the year... The Sora was calling loudy and came within 10 feet of our group... a couple of us spotted it moving slowly thru the Cattails...  We also managed to flush out a pair of Blue-winged Teals and a few Wood Ducks... We found a Yellow-rumped Warbler (114) foraging thru the willow near the first bridge. On the service rd we found Swamp Sparrows and a Hairy Woodpecker... not much else.. on the way back to our cars we found an Eastern Phoebe sitting on a dead branch near the canal.... Tom and I headed over to the North Marsh. As soon as we got out of our cars, we noticed that a very large Tern take flight from the water and head right at us.... Caspian Tern!!(115)  very cool... we watched it for a minute and called Kevin and Wayne to come and see it... by the time they got there, it was gone.... Hopefully they relocated it...
     Tom and I headed to Wetzel State Park for a quick loop around the South pond... yeah right, as if I could only stop there.... we ended up birding for about an hour... Rusty Blackbirds are still near the 27 mile rd parking lot... Ring-necked Ducks and Ruddy Ducks could be found in the ponds... we flushed a pair of Green-winged Teals.... We found an American Kestrel and watched it hunt and hover over the field... No luck finding Savannah Sparrows for Tom, but its still good to see that the Rusty Blackbirds are around....
     Tom's Pedometer recorded 11288 steps for the morning.... No wonder I was hungry when I headed for home....