Random additional photos from Maryland's Eastern Shore

I've am working on some other projects and keep coming across photos that I did not add earlier.  My visit was in the beginning of October so this is much overdue.

Now that the weather has become cold, rainy and even snowy where I live, it is really nice to remember the fabulous weather on the Eastern Shore during the first week in October.  Just a week prior to my visit Hurricane Ophelia had passed right over Ocean City.  

 

There were many, many large flocks of Sanderlings (Calidris alba).

But I saw only one Semipalmated Sandpiper (Calidris pusilla).

I had forgotten about Black Skimmers (Rynchops niger) being on the Eastern Shore.  From the Ocean City boardwalk I noticed a cluster of funny shaped black birds and am glad I trudged over the sand to see them.  

For sure, the birds out on this spit of sand were far away.  The photos are heavily cropped.  Still, I am going to go out on a limb and guess that the tern in the left of the photo is a Royal Tern (Thalasseus maximus).

A distant, and only slightly better, photo of a different Royal Tern.  Here with Laughing Gull and a shadowy gull, possibly Herring.

One of my target birds for the trip was American Oystercatcher (Haematopus palliatus).  Far away, but I still saw them.  There were four.

Wild pony of Assateague

Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polygottos) - this is a bird name that will never require changing.  The one above was in the dunes on Assateague Island, the one below was on a treetop in an Ocean City residential neighborhood.  

I would say that Great Black-backed Gulls (Larus marinus) above, along with Laughing Gulls (Leucophaeus atricilla) below, were the most common gulls in this part of the Eastern Shore. 

Which gull is this?

Where is Amar Ayyash when I need him?  The only identification that makes sense to me is Lesser Black-backed Gull (Larus fuscus).  But the large, bright orange gonydeal spot throws me a little.