September 11, 2026

Where: Bombay Hook NWR, Leipsic, DE

When: 3:30-7:00pm

Bird Species: house sparrow, common yellowthroat, great egret, snowy egret, American redstart, yellow warbler, marsh wren, downy woodpecker, gray catbird, double-crested cormorant, great blue heron, green heron, greater yellowlegs, Canada goose, laughing gull, green-winged teal, northern harrier, American avocet, northern flicker, red-winged blackbird, lesser yellowlegs, American black duck, blue-winged teal (lifer), killdeer, green heron, osprey, trumpeter swan, white ibis, lesser yellowlegs

Things I Thought About:

• I have victimized myself with hubris. The biting flies are still so bad that the only thing I was thinking about was trying to stay calm, really. I vastly underestimated how much fun it would be to try birding in long pants, long sleeves, a rain shell with a hood, a battery-powered neck fan, and constant slapping at myself. I almost booked two nights before I drove down, but I think tomorrow will be a gracious plenty. I am a prepared, and it's supposedly going to be cooler tomorrow.
• In lieu of serene swamp church thoughts, here are the highlights of today's two and half hour drive:
  • A sign that reads VAIN IS THE HELP OF MAN on a fencing company's front gate, which is confusing from a branding standpoint. God will not put up my fence.
  • A little free library filled with stuffed animals.
  • Teen clerks who could have no memories whatsoever of 9/11 speaking of how "you can see why the conspiracy theories started" while watching a news special in a Royal Farms.
  • A shop called "Bendover Romantic Superstore." There is no neighborhood or community named that. It is a sex shop in Dover, Delaware, so they called it "Bendover."
• Ducks! Ohhhh, it feels great to see a bunch of ducks again. I can't wait for them to come back inside the Beltway for the winter.

• Every fifth tree in the refuge is lousy with egrets. Egrets are to a coastal refuge as starlings are to the suburbs.

• When I was here in February, I disassociated fully and chilled, watching a heron fish. There will be none of that this time. For one thing, that pond is about 1/3 the size and surrounded by tall marsh weed, but I really cannot overstate the bug issue. I treated all my clothes and gear, and still got got. The mosquitoes and sand flies, I can mostly ignore. It's the sound of them so close to my face that is unnerving, but the neck fan mostly discourages that. It's the greenhead flies, one of which got me on my ankle, the one place where I had soaked my pants in Permethrin but not my socks. Their bite is painful. I don't want to court another one.
• Oh, hot damn, a harrier, those birds are badass.

• The thing about coastal birding is that shorebirds are really tough, and it is the nature of a marsh that you will naturally be far away and above them. My new binos are awesome. What you usually get are a lot of photos of mixed shorebirds, and then you can't tell until you download the photos what you have. There are still several that are iffy, in the far, far distance, but for the most part, I was not having trouble identifying species.
• Someone asked what the difference was between my older 10x25 binos and the new 8x42. The first number is the magnification; what I'm looking at should like eight times bigger than it does to my naked eye. The instinct here is to think that, in that case, I should have gotten the 10s again, but the important number is the 42, which is the diameter of the front lens, and is far bigger and heavier than any pair I've ever had. It just takes in more light, and makes everything look brighter and clearer. When I first started, I for sure needed as much magnification as I could get, but now that's less important. I just feel like I can see more.

• I don't see myself staying all day tomorrow, but there are observation towers that I didn't make it up today, and I would like to see those sandhill cranes I've heard about.
• Yellow warbler! And a redstart, which I missed again! Not why I'm here, but I'll take it.

• Maybe I'll tool over to Maryland on my way back. Good birds there, too. And my favorite used bookstore.

BOTD: Marsh wren. Wrens are universally agreed to be cute birds, and this one has the same cute body shape as my beloved spark bird, the Carolina wren, but they could not behave more differently. Carolina wrens have an absolutely gorgeous, loud, liquid, musical song, and they like to come out to the tops and ends of branches to sing and show off. Marsh wrens sound like people in movies telling small children a story about squirrels and mice. Loud, chittery, un-melodic, and they like to stay low in the reeds and close to the marsh mud.

Finding this little miss felt great. I need to get out further from home more often, and I will in the fall and winter. It's so exciting to clearly hear or clearly see a bird and just not know what it is, because you see it so rarely. I have been getting bored, unsurprisingly, after 256 BOTD entries. I haven't been out of state since April. It was fun to be patient and track her down, even if she never completely showed herself.

I just suddenly in my motel room I became so tired that I don't think I will even read this over before mailing. All mistakes are on purpose.