EASTERN SHORE AND CONOWINGO, NOVEMBER 27 – DECEMBER 3, 2012. RUFF. At Rigby’s Folly unless otherwise indicated. Not a single Myrtle Warbler this time.
NOVEMBER 27, Tuesday. Route 301 mile 101.2, 15 deer; mile 101.0, 5 deer. Routes 301 X 481 20 American Pipits. Flooded field W of Route 481 just N of Route 309: RUFF 1, Wilson’s Snipe 22, Dunlin 25, Killdeer 2, Ring-billed Gull 8, Rusty Blackbird 1, and Red-bellied Woodpecker 2.
Liz and I park on the side of Route 481, do not get out of the car or open any doors, get good looks at the Ruff, even in the rain, the first one I’ve seen in MD in decades. Note: NO waterfowl present, nor any “locals.” Later some birders “chase” our discovery to the irritation of landowners. Apparently some landowners and some birders behaved badly. Route 33 E of St. Michaels: 6 Wild Turkeys in their favorite field there.
Rigby’s Folly, Armistead digs: 3 P.M. onwards, overcast, light rain ending, NW 15, 45-41°F. Northern Flicker 7 in Field 1, Cedar Waxwing 13, one deer in Field 1, a Gray Squirrel scampering from Field 7 to Woods 7.
NOVEMBER 28, Wednesday. 40-45°F., NW or WNW 10 m.p.h. or calm, mostly overcast becoming fair, then clear. Watch a perfect sunset from Lucy Point (14 jet contrails in sight simultaneously). 41 species today. Walk 3 miles on the place.
A Winter Wren in the garage. In spite of its big mesh, using a crab net I “pin” the diminutive wren to the floor, hand catch it, Liz photographs it, and it is released unharmed. When first I see it flying around inside the garage my momentary impression is that it’s a small bat or large insect. As much as possible we keep the garage door closed since in the past we have found a dead Eastern Cottontail, Fowlers’ Toad, and Carolina Wren inside.
From 8:15 – 8:37 P.M. we hear a NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL calling behind the garage in Woods 8. I thought NSWOs didn’t vocalize in winter. 4th property record. We also hear a Great Horned Owl simultaneously towards the head of the cove. FULL moon (“ … gave the luster of daylight to objects below” …)
21 oyster dredgers are out on the Choptank River mouth. Hear a Common Loon utter the wolf-like wail call. White-throated Sparrows are chowing down on the Hawthorn fruit. NO anglers on the Choptank River, which seems dead. Some Asters are still in bloom along with a few half-hearted Goldenrod. 5 deer in Field 1.
Northern Gannet 1, Bufflehead 45, Bald Eagle 5, Lesser Scaup 16, Cedar Waxwing 65, Double-crested Cormorant 18 (a southbound flock; late for this many), Northern Flicker 9 (in Field 1). Observe a Carolina Chickadee chasing a Northern Cardinal ♂, and the cardinal seems anxious to escape. Pine Siskin 8, Tundra Swan 4. Red-bellied Woodpecker 4. Pileated Woodpecker 1. Fox Sparrow 3. White-throated Sparrow 35. Eastern Towhee 4. Eastern Bluebird 8, right in the yard. Sharp-shinned Hawk 1. Common Loon 4 (very few this fall). Long-tailed Duck 4. Surf Scoter 5.
NOVEMBER 29, Thursday. Eastern Cottontail (unharmed) on Ferry Neck Road at 6:10 A.M. North of Trappe an adult Red-shouldered Hawk on the wire. Nine Wild Turkeys on Ferry Neck Road at 2:45 P.M. Take the ‘Mudhen’ in for winter storage. Purchase 100 lbs. of deer corn at Eastern Service Corp. in Cambridge.
Dorchester County. 35°F. at the start, some skim ice, much frost, calm becoming SW5, tidal waters low, impoundments high, clear. 26 Rock Pigeons on the S outskirts of Cambridge. Two adult and 1 immature Bald Eagle feeding on something in a field near Route 14 X Stone Boundary Road. Wildlife Drive open only from the entrance to refuge HQ.
Egypt Road: 9 American Pipits, 2 Horned Larks, 2 Red-tailed Hawks on the wires, 3 American Kestrels, 2 adult Bald Eagles on their traditional nest just S of Egypt X Old Field roads, and Mourning Dove 35. Levin & Diane Willey see 2 VESPER SPARROWS along Egypt Road today. Levin also found a late SPOTTED SANDPIPER at Hurlock Wastewater Treatment Plant on Monday (November 26). The “Prothonotary Place” at the bend on Egypt Road has so much Red Maple stuff blown off by the recent high winds that the little stream there looks like a cranberry farm.
Blackwater N.W.R., 7:45-10:15 A.M. 46 species, incl. Canada Goose 475, Tundra Swan 30, Wood Duck 2, Gadwall 4, black duck 10, Mallard 95, Blue-winged Teal 1♂ (I mistakenly wrote this in on the clipboard as a ♀, I think), shoveler 4, pintail 10, Green-winged Teal 40, Ring-necked Duck 205, Bufflehead 30, Hooded Merganser 24, Common Merganser 1ø, Ruddy Duck 180, Pied-billed Grebe 2, AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN 6 (seen from Route 335; ponderous and massive; at rest and in majestic flight), Bald Eagle 36, harrier 2, Forster’s Tern 8, kingfisher 2, Fish Crow 4, and American Pipit 11 plus a d.o.r. Raccoon on Key Wallace Drive and 3 distant Sika Deer at Bull Point Island.
Swan Harbor: No hawk flight taking place. Dunlin 45, Northern Harrier 1, Surf Scoter 12, Northern Gannet 5, Brown Pelican 1, Tundra Swan 170, Bald Eagle only 2, Bufflehead 60, Sanderling 1, Red-breasted Merganser 1ø, Song Sparrow 10, and Great Blue Heron 4.
Lucy Point, 3:40 P.M. 48°F. Northern Gannet 4, Sharp-shinned Hawk 1, Winter Wren 1.
NOVEMBER 30, Friday. Calm or SW 5 variously, 40-52°F., fair. Canada Goose 620 (We have yet to see ANY in our fields), Tundra Swan 6 (late this fall), Bufflehead 70, Surf Scoter 85, Ring-billed Gull 30 (in the cove). Maximum in sight simultaneously – Turkey Vulture 26, Black Vulture 6. Northern Gannet 3, Bald Eagle 4, Red-tailed Hawk 1 adult. Near Heron Point Road 5 Wild Turkeys. On the water tower by the St. Michaels Fire Dept.: 35 vultures (didn’t stop to ID them as to species).
DECEMBER 1, Saturday. Fog all day, calm, 40-46°F. We plant daffodil bulbs by the driveway bend. Four Gray Squirrels at the corn. 28 White-throated Sparrows at the feed also. A Winter Wren buzzes by the corner of the house, no more than 4 feet away. There’s one in the garage … again. A Virginia Opossum at 9:59 P.M. heading out of Woods 6. Have oyster stew from a pint acquired from Kool Ice in Cambridge. Liz adds half-and-half … and butter, parsley.
DECEMBER 2, Sunday. Fog in the A.M., visibility sometimes only 100 yards, slowly burning off, fair 36-55°F., calm or SW 5-10, water levels – tidal waters low, lower than on Thursday, impounded waters continue high.
Egypt Road in dense fog 7:15 – 7:30 A.M.: American Pipit 11, Horned Lark 1, Eastern Meadowlark 1, Savannah Sparrow 1, and Red-tailed Hawk 2 (on the wires again).
Blackwater N.W.R., 7:45 A.M. – 1:30 P.M. 62 species. Some of these seen before or after the official 8-noon birdwalk, with participants: Harry & Liz Armistead, Karen Caruso, Kate Murphy, Julie & Michael Redmond, Arnold Simon, Leo Weigant & Levin Willey. The Talbot Bird Club is also here but we birded separately. Fox Squirrel 1 (near the Wildlife Drive blind). Five woodpecker species are seen within a small area E of the blind. All of Wildlife Drive now open today. Mostly my own sloppy estimates, or impressions:
Canada Goose 2,000± incl. a café au lait-colored individual (a photograph by David Govoni appears on MDBIRDING on Dec. 3), Tundra Swan 40, American Wigeon 2♂, American Black Duck 8, Mallard 225, Northern Shoveler 40, Northern Pintail 500, Green-winged Teal 40, Ring-necked Duck 155, Bufflehead 6 (in Pool 1!), Hooded Merganser 20, Ruddy Duck 55, Wild Turkey 6 (seen on Egypt Road by Arnold & Kate), AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN 12, Double-crested Cormorant 15, Great Blue Heron 6, Bald Eagle 20, Northern Harrier 3, Virginia Rail 4, American Coot 16, Killdeer 14, Greater Yellowlegs 18, Dunlin 280, Wilson’s Snipe 2 (flushed from the blind area), Forster’s Tern 8, Belted Kingfisher 2, Hairy Woodpecker 1, Pileated Woodpecker 2, Fish Crow 1, Brown-headed Nuthatch 5, Winter Wren 1, Golden-crowned Kinglet 3, Hermit Thrush 3, Savannah Sparrow 1, Slate-colored Junco 12, and House Sparrow 2.
Rigby’s Folly, 2:30 P.M. until dark, mostly overcast, 59-55°F., SW 5. Northern Gannet 2, Tundra Swan 2, Surf Scoter 6, Common Goldeneye 1ø (my 1st of the fall, about time), Bald Eagle 1 imm., Common Loon 1, and Great Black-backed Gull 1 adult. At dusk a Red Bat is flying around the yard NW of the house, seems as bright as a ♂ cardinal, or, at least, a Red Fox. Rigby’s mammal records are erratic, but there was one seen April 12, 2003. Eighteen White-throated Sparows at the feed at dusk. Three Gray Squirrels. Winter Wren in the garage. Liz finds a tiny hole in a window screen enabling its entry. That window is now closed for the duration. An Eastern Cottontail going from Woods 3 to Woods 4 at 6 A.M.
DECEMBER 3, Monday. Calm, fair, 49-55°F. 3 Gray Squirrels at the feed. Two men in a wooden skiff, MD7265T - no longer than 18’ - are pulling in a couple of hundred yards of gill nets in the cove, catching some White Perch. One assumes they are legitimate (?). A flock of c. 45 Green-winged Teal wheels and turns several times over Irish Creek, then disappears to the S, the 2nd largest count for here.
Near Centreville there’s a Skunk d.o.r. and 2 adult Bald Eagles tangling with each other high in the air.
Conowingo Dam-Susquehanna River. 2:15-4 P.M. Fair, 60s, calm. Low water, no great discharge or release while we’re there. Sloppy estimates, except for the 1st 3 species: Bald Eagle 85, Black Vulture 300, Great Blue Heron 30 (c. 120 nests from last summer counted), Double-crested Cormorant 55, American Crow 95, Rock Pigeon 70, Ring-billed Gull 1K+ plus a few Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls, White-breasted Nuthatch 1, Canada Goose 90, Mallard 45, and Turkey Vulture 15.
On the 2 close towers seen from the parking lot on the west side (Shures Landing Road, ADC Harford County atlas, Map 13, coordinates A & B 1 and Map 6, coordinates J 4), there are 25 eagles on the left one, 12 on the rightie. As much of a spectacle as anything are tens of thousands of $$ of photographic equipment (and this on a Monday) and myriad logs and other debris massed upstream of the dam. Pass Red Toad Road (? ; let me know when you see one) and Our Lady of the Highways (Oblates of St. Francis de Sales) on the way home.
“The havoc began by the Clarks’ Ferry dam on the Susquehanna was completed by the erection of the Conowingo dam. This giant of steel and concrete marks the journey’s end for all migrating fish.” Rachel Carson, March 1, 1936, Baltimore Sun, as recounted in Chesapeake Bay Magazine, Dec./Jan., which came in today’s mail. Let’s hope there are good fish ladders here now.
Much later the Agriculture-Chemical complex would spend thousands of $$ vilifying her, because she was a woman, unmarried, and lacked a doctorate, but mostly because she spoke inconvenient truths.
CALLS OF WATERFOWL, another excellent Lang Elliott production, actually entitled Calls of ducks and geese by Lang Elliott et al. I got it at the Blackwater Visitor Center. Many of these calls are rarely heard, such as the scoters. Have you ever heard a shoveler, or Hooded Merganser, or Redhead? The CD accompanying the book lacks White-winged Scoter, Mute Swan, and the flock-in-flight calls of a Tundra Swan, but has a bonus of all species of loons (except Arctic) and grebes. The calls of Mallard and American Black Duck seem to differ.
FIREWOOD. Build a nice fire one evening just from sections of a Sycamore branch, fallen from a tree I planted 40 some years ago transplanted from Benezet Street in Philadelphia. Was lodged in an Eastern Redcedar, had to pull it loose with a rope attached to the TrailBlazer. Rather easy to cut, dense wood yielding “logs” no more than 3 or 4 inches in diameter, burns well but slowly. Even as long ago as 20 years I used to climb this Sycamore in March before the foliage came out – it reached higher than the house roof – and take panoramic photographs of the surrounds.
One could write a nice essay on how various woods burn. Sigurd Olson did this with “Pine knots,” an entire chapter, in his evocative The Singing Wilderness (Knopf, 1956). “I have heard the singing in many places, but I seem to hear it best in the wilderness lake country of the Quetico-Superior, where the travel is still by pack and canoe over the ancient trails of the Indians and voyageurs.” pp. 5-6.
“I tucked the knot in among the glowing coals, where it was quietly caressed by exploring tongues of flame. It began to burn, gently at first, the yellows, blues, and reds of the resins bathing its black surface with strange lights. Here was the accumulated sunlight of bygone days giving off its warmth once more, the sun that had shone over the Quetico-Superior centuries before we were born. Now it was ours to share, and with it, all that the pine had known throughout its life. That pine knot was a concentration not only of energy but of the country itself. Burning it was the climax not only to its growth but to the expedition on which I found it.” p. 170.
Other books by “Bourgeois” bear such poetic titles as Runes of the North, The Lonely Land, Listening Point, and Open Horizons. They’re mostly illustrated, marvelously, by Francis Lee Jaques (pronounced jayqueez). For some reason whenever I hear the beautiful melody that comes towards the middle of Saint-Saëns’ ‘Organ Symphony’ I am always transported back to when I read Olson’s books (1960s), and to our family vacation (1980s) driving north in Manitoba all the way to Thompson. “Bourgeois” is the nickname given to Olson by his fellow canoeists, worthy inheritors of the traditions of the voyageurs.
At any rate, it is nice to watch the sycamore sections slowly burning – no sparks – while I sit half-tipsy from a James Bond recipe martini, listening to great music from the little portable CD player, the outside winter darkness enveloping the old house.
TALBOT COUNTY CULTURE. One night we attend a Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra concert in Easton (selections from ‘The Nutcracker,’ Christmas carols, some ballet). Another night the Easton Choral Arts Society concert at another Easton venue (most of ‘The Messiah’). Impromptu decisions to go … still get good seats. Free parking right next to the concert halls. Small enough so it’s an intimate experience. Nice to hear well what the double basses are doing. To shake the hand of the blind soprano who sang at the symphony. Watershed experiences. I am tired of the very expensive Philadelphia parking for “big time” concerts, $20 and up. Drive halfway through the city to get there. Big, impersonal crowds.
Best to all. – Harry Armistead, Philadelphia.
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