FERRY NECK & BLACKWATER N.W.R., OCTOBER 27-31, 2012. MY HURRICANE, Hurricane Sandy: property good, birding poor. Notes are for Rigby’s Folly unless noted otherwise. Tide times as stated are for the nearby Choptank River light.
OCTOBER 27, SATURDAY. Late afternoon only. Overcast, east winds 5-10, 65°F., high tide (2:53 P.M.) only 6”± above normal. Three hours of hurricane preparation- put canoe in garage, store outdoor furniture indoors, lower storm windows, flip benches over, secure front screen door from the outside, etc. A junco along the driveway. A Great Blue Heron. Very dry (that will soon change).
OCTOBER 28, SUNDAY. Overcast, rain all day, north winds 15+, temps in the 50s.
Egypt Road: 13 Savannah, 3 White-throated & 33 Chipping sparrows, 215 American Robins, 4 Killdeer, 12 Wood Ducks, 170 European Starlings, and 80 Ring-billed, 55 Laughing & 95 Herring gulls. Birds, esp. the gulls, starting to gather in the fields to ride it out.
Blackwater N.W.R., 7:30-11:45 A.M. & 12:45-1:15 P.M. To my astonishment Dan Mellis and Levin Willey show up for this rainy, windy birdwalk. Not all birds listed below are seen on the official birdwalk. During the course of the day I traverse Wildlife Drive 3 times.
Ruddy Duck 13, Northern Shoveler 6, Green-winged Teal 800, Northern Pintail 70, Greater Yellowlegs 11, Black-bellied Plover 1 (Pool 1), Forster’s Tern 80, Palm Warbler 1, Eastern Phoebe 1, Wood Duck 9, Pine Siskin 8, Great Blue Heron 8, Dunlin 1, Belted Kingfisher 2, American Black Duck 10, Tree Swallow 5, Mallard 400, Field Sparrow 1, Bald Eagle 20, Slate-colored Junco 9, and Red-winged Blackbird 700. Plus a Fox and a Gray Squirrel, and, d.o.r., a Red Fox. How surprising to see 3 Marsh Hibiscus still in bloom. No sign of the disabled American White Pelican.
Maple Dam Road. 12:30 P.M. 1 Great Egret, 2 Red-tailed Hawks.
Hip Roof Road. 1:21-1:40 P.M. Wild Turkey 15, Killdeer 35, Wood Duck 7, Savannah Sparrow 5, Wilson’s Snipe 1, Eastern Meadowlark 3, Eastern Bluebird 6, and, at the piles of crab remains and other delectable garbage: Fish Crow 30, starling 80, Ring-billed Gull 15, Herring Gull 450, and Laughing Gull 325. Three deer.
Swan Harbor Road, 1:45-2:15 P.M. The sandbars are almost completely submerged but still carry 29 Sanderlings and a Black-bellied Plover. It’s high tide and 1.5-2’ above normal, starting to subside. Bald Eagle 6, cormorant 215, Herring Gull 150, Laughing Gull 60, Great Black-backed Gull 75, Surf Scoter 3, Royal Tern 5, Forster’s Tern 16, Common Loon 2, and Eastern Bluebird 4. A mixed species foraging guild along the road yields Song & Chipping sparrows, Palm & Myrtle warblers, Eastern Phoebe, Slate-colored Juncos … 35 birds in various configurations. But of most interest are 2 Sika Deer stags, both so dark they look black in the distance.
Hooper’s Island. Forget it. Roads are submerged.
Smithville Road. 2:50 P.M. 1 Great Egret & a six-point buck.
Taylor’s Island (Taylor’s Island Family Campground [the cheek-by-jowl world champion] & vicinity). Do a sea watch here 3-4 P.M., rain, 51°F., winds NE15+, all birds heading north into the wind: 4 adult Northern Gannets, 74 Surf Scoters, 5 Brown Pelicans, 275 cormorants, 55 Laughing Gulls (only 3 are immature), 2 Herring Gulls, 2 Great Black-backed Gulls, 2 Forster’s Terns, 2 Ring-billed Gulls, 45 robins, and 1 Dunlin plus 6 feral rabbits of varying colors hunkered down under some of the scores of trailers. Five deer nearby.
It looks as if every car on Taylor’s Island is parked on the high ground next to the post office and many cars are also on the shoulders of Route 335 and 16, none of which relieves my anxiety about the storm surge.
Slaughter Creek: 4 Royal Terns and the only Turkey Vulture I see today.
Parsons Creek: An adult Bald Eagle and a pair of normal brown-colored Sika Deer.
Church Creek: the only Osprey I see during this visit. 4:35 P.M.
Royal Oak: 3 Wild Turkeys at 5:37 P.M.
Back at the place: 5 deer in Field 4 incl. a buck, 5:47 P.M. 0.5” in the dock rain gauge.
WNEW 99.1 provides helpful hurricane news.
OCTOBER 29, MONDAY. 9:30-10 A.M., overcast, heavy rain, NW5+, 3.6” of new rain in gauge. A cormorant in flight over the cove. Some juncos, White-throated & Chipping sparrows on the lawn. Spend last night & tonight at the Best Western motel in St. Michaels where almost all of the time the power, lights, heat, water, and continental breakfast are off, in contrast to Rigby’s Folly, where they stay on. Graul’s closes at noon but I stock up on canned peaches, nuts, Slim Jims, PB&J, and their ilk. A Loblolly Pine is down across White Hall Road. Our ditches are overflowing. The fields look like shallow ponds.
A flock of robins at the entrance to John Swaine’s driveway. Twelve Wild Turkeys at their favored location S of Rt. 33 and E of St. Michaels, foraging, under these miserable conditions, 11:15 A.M.
Back again 4-4:30 P.M. In the rain gauge an additional 2.6” since 10 A.M. High tide (4:18 P.M.) is up to the lowest horizontal beam of the dock. 40+ m.p.h. winds. Groups of robins around the Waterthrush Pond and John Swaine’s driveway. A Gray Squirrel near the garage.
Top off ‘The Osprey’ during the height of the storm at the St. Michaels Sunoco. 6.915 gallons.
From what I hear the worst winds are at c. 8 P.M. tonight. I am asleep by then.
OCTOBER 30, TUESDAY. Two mockingbirds almost at my feet outside the motel room.
9:30-10:30 A.M. 3.2” in the rain gauge. Official low tide is 10:15 A.M., only 6-7” less than the high tide will be at 4:55 P.M. (to my relief) but this high tide within 2” of the docks’s surface. Hurricane Isabel had a surge 2’-3’ above this mark. It is gratifying that during the entire storm the runoff in the ditch on the S side of Field 4 and from Field 6 into Waterthrush Pond is nice and clear, as is the huge amount of water now in The Pond, in spite of a veritable current in these places, as if they are small brooks. Eleven Forster’s Terns out over Irish Creek, a flight of 70 American Robins heading S over Woods 1. Two bucks and a doe in Field 2.
Back to do a sea watch 2:10 – 4:25 P.M. Overcast (no kidding), light rain, winds 30+ m.p.h., gradual, minimal subsidence of the tidal water, but breakers breaking over the top of the rip rap, mid-40s, cold, raw, penetratsio. A cruise ship, under these conditions, steams steadily NW out in the Choptank River mouth. Curious, it’s hard to see even just a glimmer of Cook’s Point and Black Walnut points (ea. 7 mi. away) yet the Patuxent River towers show up pretty well, well over 20 miles distant.
But, let’s cut to the chase. Seen in the vicinity of Lucy Point: 3 Dunlin, 93 Surf Scoters (in configurations of from 1 to 16), a ♀ Black Scoter, 5 American Black Ducks, 2 Lesser Scaup, 4 cormorants, 24 Canada Geese, 1 Turkey Vulture, 5 Bald Eagles (2 imm., 2 ad., 1 unknown), a Sharp-shinned Hawk, a Northern Flicker, 2 Herring Gulls, 21 Laughing Gulls, 3 Ring-billed Gulls, 5 unID’d gulls, 9 Cedar Waxwings, 14 American Crows, 2 Royal Terns (possibly 6 but I believe I saw the same 2 three times), 1 Forster’s Tern, 11 White-throated Sparrows, a Palm Warbler, and 4 Myrtle Warblers plus a Gray Squirrel.
Not very impressive, eh? My mistake is not doing a sea watch here yesterday, or an additional one today, when perhaps I would have seen a jaeger, Red Phalarope, or Leach’s Storm Petrel as others did on the western shore, around Conowingo Dam, and, believe it or not, right in Philadelphia.
[In Philadelphia at Pennypack on the Delaware today, 7-11:15 A.M., George Armistead is with a group of 12 who see: 345 Brant (+ 11 other waterfowl species), 6 Leach’s Storm-Petrels, 1 Red Phalarope, 1 Sabine’s Gull, 1 juvenile Sooty Tern (photographed), and a Parasitic Jaeger plus both loons and 4 other tern species. George says that at the Commodore Barry bridge a resident Peregrine Falcon pair is picking off some of the hapless Leach’s Storm-Petrels. Later in the day, October 30, this group saw a Cackling Goose, a Cave Swallow, and 7 Leach’s Storm-Petrels.]
Other than these bell-ringer species it seems the most widespread dislocations involving commoner birds are of Dunlin and Brant. Heck, even I see Dunlins twice this visit.
American Birding Association President Jeff Gordon is interviewed on NPR regarding birders and hurricanes. But, back to you, Harry:
In the fields, a lot of encounters with deer, incl. at least 4 bucks, with good racks, and 6 does.
Along the driveway: mixed flocks with Field (4) and White-throated (35) sparrows, an imm. White-crowned Sparrow, 11 juncos, a phoebe, 3 cardinals, 2 mockingbirds, 2 towhees, 3 Blue Jays, 4 Song Sparrow, a Wild Turkey, a titmouse, and a Hairy Woodpecker.
From the yard a Gray Squirrel and 14 Tree Swallows. A Carolina Wren singing in the gloom of dusk, a bird with heart, like Hardy’s Darkling Thrush: “So little cause for carolings of such ecstatic sound/Were written on terrestrial things afar or nigh around/That I could think there trembled through his happy good night air/Some blessed hope whereof he knew and I was unaware.” Whatever.
Bellevue, A Common Loon, a Gray Squirrel, and 12 Wild Turkeys, the latter near the junction of Bellevue X Ferry Neck roads.
A Great Blue Heron on the side of the very flooded Scrimegours’ driveway. I was up 3 times last night and each time the wind is not too bad, the rain lessened. So since conditions are better I check out of the motel, where one of the few staff there during the storm asks if I am a waterman, a compliment of sorts, one supposes. Must have been the white boots.
OCTOBER 31, WEDNESDAY. An additional 0.2” in the rain gauge. Rain has stopped. Overcast with some occasional, small breaks in the clouds, SW 15+, 45-50°F., raw. A grand total of 10.3” of rain during this period, a surprising amount of which “soaked in.” Do another anemic sea watch 8:30-10:30 from Lucy Point, to wit:
Caspian Tern 1 (previous property late date was October 10), Dunlin 9, Surf Scoter 32, Black Scoter 1♀ (no doubt same bird as yesterday; diving for food, and under these murky conditions), Bald Eagle 7 (at least), Ruddy Duck 2, Bufflehead 14, Northern Pintail 1♂, Northern Harrier 1 (crossing the Choptank River), Cedar Waxwing 165 (13 flocks, one of those also crossing the Choptank), Tree Swallow 36, American Robin 3, cormorant 6, Myrtle Warbler 2, Royal Tern 7, Forster’s Tern 3, Turkey Vulture 1, Canada Goose 8, Herring Gull 8, Ring-billed Gull 4, Laughing Gull 40, and Great Black-backed Gull 3.
Elsewhere on the old place: good numbers of Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Myrtle Warblers, and White-throated Sparrows. Spend several hours restoring things to the conditions prior to hurricane prep work, clear the driveway, remove fallen limbs (some of them heavy enough so removing them is strenuous) and branches, and take off by 1:15 P.M. Thank Heaven Rigby’s Folly dodged the bullets this time, with the exception of some erosion along our Choptank River shoreline. Here’s hoping you made out as well.
Best to all. – Harry Armistead, Philadelphia.
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