A Bird Nerd's Guide To Chesapeake Birding

A Bird Nerd's Guide To Chesapeake Birding

- Gary Reich

I am an over-the-top geek for birds. If the four nest boxes and five bird feeders in my backyard don’t sufficiently bolster my bird-nerd credentials, then the four pairs of binoculars and half a dozen or so bird field guides scattered about my house do.

I’m happy to report that some of my fishing and boating friends share this affliction. Watching and photographing birds is as much a part of our time together as fishing, crabbing or creek hopping. And luckily, Chesapeake Bay is one of the finest birding areas on the planet. Lying smack in the middle of the Atlantic Flyway — an avian superhighway, if you will — the Chesapeake offers superb, year-round birding, especially from a boat.

The first visitors we often see each spring are the thousands of ospreys that departed the Bay in late summer for warmer climes. These long distance endurance fliers winter as far away as the Caribbean and South America, which sounds like my kind of vacation. Every spring, these fish-eating predators return within a week or so on either side of St. Patrick’s Day. They come to nest, breed and raise their young. Many folks on the Bay take their arrival as an opportunity to celebrate: Winter is finally over.

Osprey are a delight to watch when they go airborne in search of food, calling to one another with a distinctive, high-pitched