On Monday, I spent the morning with a client in Sprawlborough Marsh. Chuck was here from Maui visiting friends and family. He wanted to take advantage of the trip to fill in a hole on his list: Nelson’s Sharp-tailed Sparrow.

When we talked a month or so ago, I informed him that is early for both Nelson’s and Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrows. However, I have seen both species as early as May 20th. Therefore, we decided to get together on the last full day of his stay in the region, to hedge the bet as much as possible.

Now, I did pause at the thought of taking this assignment because I have never missed these birds with a client. I didn’t want to break my streak! But, I took the gig as a challenge, and we set out to find the first Nelson’s Sharp-tailed Sparrow. We arrived at the marsh at about 7:00. A fairly stiff breeze was not instilling any additional confidence however. But, at 7:30, we were looking at a Nelson’s in the grass about 30 feet away, even getting views of it through the scope. Mission accomplished. Now, what would we have to do for the next 6 years. . . err, sorry, wrong “mission accomplished,” what I meant was what would we do for the next few hours?

With the pressure of finding the target bird off my shoulders, we just enjoyed a few hours of leisurely birding in the marsh. Highlights included a White-rumped Sandpiper, my first of the spring, darting around the Eastern Road Trail salt pannes. One Least Tern over Eastern Rd and another over Jones Creek were also a “FOY.” Small numbers of Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, and Least Sandpipers were here and there, along with the usual marsh denizens. 6 species of warblers were in the woods near the Pelreco building, two American Oystercatchers were off of Pine Point, and a Merlin zipped by near Jones Creek. There, we also heard a distant singing Nelson’s Sharp-tailed Sparrow and enjoyed a crippling view of a Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow, nice both for comparison sake, and for keeping my streak alive!

These sparrows (plus 1-2 other unidentified sharp-tailed sparrows) have literally just arrived, so we were lucky indeed to see both so well. In fact, it is distinctly possible that they came in last night. Afterall, there was a very good flight of birds overnight as shown by the 10:00pm, 1:00am, and 4:00am radars.

Light southwesterly winds overnight, with widely scattered light showers allowed migrants to proceed virtually unimpeded once again. Meanwhile, a stubborn upper-level low just to our north will continue to rotate weak disturbances through our area. One such weak disturbance brought those very light showers yesterday evening and overnight, and should do the same today. It is also that rotation, bringing in colder Canadian air for the week. Temperatures will be a little below normal, and the occasional weak system will provide some showers. Hopefully, some of them will be significant enough that I won’t be standing behind my garden hose for a little while!