Top of the Bay

     I went to North East River at North East, Maryland for a few hours on the afternoon of August 20, 2015 to see what water birds were around.  I view the North East River from a lovely park right where North East Creek flows into the river at the top of Chesapeake Bay.  With benches and picnic tables in the park, the viewing of the river is quite comfortable.
     I drove through farmland, woodland and small towns from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and through part of northeast Maryland to get to North East River.  That river, which is a broad, north-extending arm of the Chesapeake, is a different environment than my home in nearby Lancaster County, one of the reasons I like to visit North East.  The North East River, reaching far inland, brings a bit of the sea coast inland, within an hour's drive of my home county.
     I didn't see a big variety of birds that day at North East River, but what I did see was interesting.
The first birds I saw were a few ospreys flying and soaring over the water in their search for large fish to catch.  One osprey did hover briefly into the wind, then dropped feet-first to the water to snare a fish in its strong, sharp talons.  Soon that fish hawk rose from the water with a fish in its claws and pumped its wings powerfully toward shore to eat its victim.  It shook the water out of its feathers to lighten the load it had to carry as it powered through the air.  But an adult bald eagle apparently saw the osprey catch the fish and quickly and repeatedly dove at the fish hawk to scare it into dropping its meal, which the eagle would claim for itself.  That scare tactic by eagles often works on ospreys, who drop their prize to give the eagles what they want so they can get away.  The fish hawk is then safe and whole, ready to snare another fish.  But this osprey didn't give up its meal, rather the eagle gave up and soared away. 
     There were two adult bald eagles, perhaps a mated pair, soaring over the North East River that afternoon.  They were magnificent in flight, and their white heads and tails stood out vividly against dark storm clouds. 
     There were the usual scores of ring-billed gulls on the water of the North East River that afternoon.  And I noticed a few laughing gulls, both adults and young of the year, among them.  Laughing gulls are birds of the Atlantic coastline in summer.  They nest in salt marshes between the barrier islands and the mainland and take advantage of any food source they can handle.  They catch small fish and scavenge anything they can get hold of, including peanuts and popcorn people on beaches and boardwalks throw at them for the peoples' entertainment.
     But I'm always surprised to see a few laughing gulls inland.  As I watched the gulls and other birds in the area, a storm moved in, there were flashes of lightning and booms of thunder, which sent people scurrying to their cars, including me, and caused the gulls to fly up at once from the water in alarm. 
     About ten minutes later when I looked at the gulls on the water again, they were darker than they were before.  Puzzled, I looked at them with 16 power binoculars and saw that most of them were laughing gulls!  Where were they Before? I don't know.  But in groups of twos and threes and more, bunch after bunch, they were flying to docks.  I went to those docks and saw many each of laughing gulls and ring-billed gulls on them.  I counted 162 laughing gulls, half of them the brown young of the year.  I thought that was a large number of that kind of gull so far inland.
     But, of course, those gulls were done nesting for the year, as evidenced by all the young laughing gulls.  And since there numbers probably doubled or more in the past few months, laughing gulls as a species had to spread out to find food in places where they had not been until done raising young, including along he shores of the upper Chesapeake Bay and the North East River.  Supposedly they will remain at those feeding places until the threat of the coming winter drives them farther south along the sea coast.
     There were also a few Forster's tern catching small fish from the North East River while I was there.  These birds are smaller and whiter than the gulls, but fly just as swiftly.  They cruise over larger bodies of water, with their beaks pointed down, and watch the surface for vulnerable, small fish.  When prey is spotted, they hover into the wind momentarily to position themselves, then drop beak-first into the water and attempt to catch their finny victims in their bills.  They are often successful and emerge from the water with the prey in their beaks.             
     It was rewarding to me to see laughing gulls and Forster's terns so far inland.  But they were post-breeding birds that followed large bodies of water inland in their searches for food, bringing a bit of the sea coast with them.