Hundred on the Hook - 2006 Home | Recent Sightings | Birding Spots | Photo Gallery | My Refuge Checklist | Directions

Back in early January Bruce Peterjohn and I began a goal of seeing 100+ species of birds on 'Prime Hook Extended' for each of the 12 months in 2006. ('Prime Hook Extended' can be simple defined as the area east of Route 1 that is north of the Broadkill River (including Oyster Rocks), and south of Slaughter Beach Road.) With the completion of our last Hundred on the Hook day on December 3rd we acheived our goal, and along the way we recorded 246 species totaling approximately 239784 individual birds. Our best month was May with a total of 151 species, and our lowest toal went to February with 103 species. During our 12 trips we logged a total of 152.75 hours in the field, with 49 foot miles, and 1287 auto miles.

Here are the monthly totals:

Over the 12 months our schedules made for some interesting birding days, as we ended up birding in some rather interesting weather. Take February for instance where the temperatures was between 17 and 33 degrees throughout the day with snow. I don't recall the month on one day Frank Rohrbacher called us crazy for doing a big day with the winds blowing above 20 mph.

Our best bird over our 12 outings was the Gull-billed Tern seen at Fowler Beach on November 5th, as this bird was at least 2 months later than any other previous sighting in Delaware. If alive, the Yellow Rail we found on March 25th in the Broadkill Marsh area would have been right up there with the Gull-billed Tern, but unfortunately the bird had passed a few days before. Our other good birds were: White Ibis on July 16th at Oyster Rocks; both Iceland and Glaucous Gull on February 18th at Prime Hook Beach; Common Nighthawk on April 29th at the Headquarter's Area; and a Philadelphia Vireo on September 10th at the State Wildlife Area. The biggest misses for us were American Golden Plover, Least Flycatcher, Blue-headed Vireo, and Lincoln's Sparrow.

Check out the Hundred on the Hook - 2006 workbook for the complete sightings list, including the individual species counts (thanks Bruce), along with the original DE-Birds write ups and weather information for each of the 12 HOTH days.

Here are some of the other hightlights: