Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 14:44:08 EDT Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Marshall Iliff Subject: At sea off Dorchester Comments: cc: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@compuserve.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit MDOsprey, Below is an account of a "Poor Man's Pelagic" that Harry Armistead and I did last Thursday in his little outboard: "The Mudhen". His acocunt reads as much like a short story as a trip report, and hopefully will be enjoyed. Highlights of the trip were one species of tubenose (a first county record - our target species) and one species of marine mammal. See below for details... Best, Marshall Iliff miliff@aol.com ****************************************************************************** ****************** May 31, 2000. Before I get started: A Red-headed Woodpecker has been excavating a nesting cavity in a 25 foot dead loblolly in our woods. This tree is only 10 feet off of Ferry Neck Road. The cavity is big enough so that about 3/4 of the bird disappears into it when it enters to dig out more. AT SEA OFF DORCHESTER June 1, 2000, a.k.a. Thursday: A quick car repair plus Marshall Iliff's sudden return from Bermuda led to a spur-of-the-moment Chesapeake pelagic trip, if you will. We put in at Crocheron at 5:55 A.M. "Marbles of the dancing floor Break bitter furies of complexity, Those images that yet Fresh images beget, That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea." - William Butler Yeats. LOOK, ARMISTEAD, YOU'RE ONLY TALKING ABOUT THE CHESAPEAKE HERE. LET'S NOT GET TOO CARRIED AWAY. YOU WERE 80 MILES FROM THE ATLANTIC. That's right, but someone forgot to tell the petrels, gannets, and dolphins we saw that it wasn't the sea. And what about our exquisite little sea turtles, the Diamond-backed Terrapin? They swim in from the deep, haul out, and lay their eggs in the sand with all the panache of the magisterial Leatherbacks on the great strands of Suriname. Anyone who doesn't think the central Chesapeake is the sea should consider that the petrels are here EVERY YEAR in May and June. And get with the spirit of that son of Dorchester, novelist John Barth: "How can water that doesn't chase the moon speak to the imagination? I had rather watch tides come and go from the merest muddy fingerling of a cove off a creek off a river off a bay off an ocean than own Golden Pond. What mattered to me as a boy was the fact that the scruffy water in Cambridge Creek was contiguous with, say, Portugal." 6:45-7:20 A.M. SPRING ISLAND (part of Blackwater N.W.R.). Huge activity on this small island. 2 Peregrine Falcons on the hacking tower. 815 Brown Pelicans in sight at one time, a total of c. 1,035 in the Spring-Bloodsworth Island area, a new state high count. In 1998 there were 15 pelican nests here. In 1999 at least 141. Several sub-adults were seen carrying nesting material. Do they engage in cooperative breeding with such birds helping full adults? 325 Herring, 35 Laughing and 15 Great Black-backed Gulls. 65 Double-crested Cormorants. 3 American Oystercatchers. These are all breeding species here. By standing on the north end of the island we caused minimal disturbance, virtually all of the birds remaining at their nests. Our one foray of a few minutes into the north segment of the pelican colony revealed 8 nests with no eggs yet, 2 with one egg, 6 with two, and 3 with three. For Herring Gulls in this same segment: 1 nest with no eggs yet, 3 with one egg, 6 with two, and 16 with three. State DNR and/or refuge personnel will no doubt do a full census here so we left that to them. Besides, we were anxious to get "to sea". 8:25-12:45 at MID-BAY west of Holland Island, east of the Point No Point Lighthouse. This is the first ever genuine pelagic trip in Chesapeake Bay, spent mostly adrift at least 7 miles from the nearest land with these sightings: 7 Wilson's Storm-Petrels, 2 2nd-year Northern Gannets, 5 D.-c. Cormorants, 42 Brown Pelicans, 2 Canada Geese [in group headed north in Bay - MJI], 1 Cattle and 2 Snowy Egrets, 1 Great Blue Heron, 1 Osprey, 1 Semipalmated Plover, 1 Least Sandpiper, 12 Semipalmated Sandpipers, 2 Great Black-backed, 5 Herring and 27 Laughing Gulls, 5 Forster's, 16 Common and 4 Royal Terns, 1 Purple Martin. We had a couple of dozen petrel sightings, including one of 4 birds together, often close enough for Marshall to squeeze off some shots. Our total of 7 seems reasonable and conservative to me. To think that some of these little birds, practically in our backyards, come all the way from Antarctica. Water temperature 66-67, depth 53-114 feet. Wind SW 12-16, then S or SE 7-8. Mostly overcast, high 60's-low 70's. Strange to see so much Ruppia grass floating around. Caught and released a 16 inch sea trout, a most beautiful fish. Nearby the 72 buoy tolls a pleasant clanging redolent of maritime venues everywhere. A 54 mile boat trip (used 11.8 gallons of fuel) with Marshall as first mate, boatswain, dispenser of Quaker Puffed Rice, and spotter of almost everything. I served as captain, recorder, and dispenser of awful offal: fat and meat scraps (thanks SuperFresh; the price was right), stale/moldy whole wheat bread, chicken scraps, and fish (Menhaden) oil (sometimes called bunker oil), the latter available at Tommy's Sporting Goods in Cambridge @ $15.95 a gallon, about as much as my favorite gin runs. Handle the bunker oil like you're mopping up after Chernobyl. After washing my hands 6 times the residual odor subsided to a dull roar (back on the mainland my family suggested trying milk, baking soda, or lemon juice instead of simply soap). Our bill of fare brings to mind some lines from Spenser's "Fairie Queen": "Therewith out of her mouth she spewed A flood of poison horrible and black, Full of great lumps of flesh and gobbits raw, Which stunk so viley if forced him slack His grasping hold and from her turn him back. Her vomit full of books and papers was And toads and frogs which eyes did lack, Creeping way sought in the weedy grass. Her filthy parbreake all the place defile it has." A little overstated perhaps but once on the Cape Hatteras Christmas Count on a day when it didn't get over 29, after a massive Menhaden die-off - millions of them - and in spite of the icy conditions, our clothes became impregnated with the odor (whoops, that was a sentence that makes Faulkner sound taciturn). Gulls were there in countless thousands. My party had the lowest Ring-billed count (except for one party confined to the woods): 28,000. Marshall knows his insects. Here in mid-Bay we saw these butterflies and dragonflies: 8 Monarchs, 2 Variegated Fritillaries, 1 anglewing sp., 2 small orange butterflies, 2 medium-sized butterflies, 1 Seaside Dragonlet, 1 dragonfly sp. and 2 glider sp [6+ glider sp. I think, most probably Black Saddlebags - MJI]. Some of these too distant to ID. We were surprised to see Common (especially) and Royal Terns eagerly dive for fat/meat scraps, just a few feet away, right off the stern. Laughing Gulls liked the Quaker Puffed Rice. The petrels were attracted to the fish oil chum slick. We cut short our mid-Bay stay because storm clouds began forming over the western shore. The storms never materialized but it was good to proceed to the islands anyway. HOLLAND ISLAND. 1:17-2:17 P.M. The old house has finally begun to be undercut by the Bay. How sad. Pending diagnosis of Marshall's photographs: 4 Bottle-nosed Dolphins only 100 yards or so offshore, the first I've ever seen in the Bay! Holland is much diminished. It's days are numbered. The heronry is down but Little Blues, both night herons, Great Blues, Great and Snowy Egrets, and Glossy Ibis still nest here. Marshall flushed a Clapper Rail off her nest with 11 eggs. Butterflies/dragonflies: Saltmarsh Skipper, Red Admiral, Orange Sulphur, a possible Variegated Fritillary, Mourning Cloak, Monarch, Clouded Sulphur, Cabbage White, and Blue Dasher plus a Tiger Beetle. ADAM ISLAND. Just a random, drive-by birding but it was easy to see that a few Great Blues still nest in the Red Cedars on the central ridge. We didn't land. PONE ISLAND. Has 2 lovely sandbars used extensively by roosting waterbirds. This is where George and I saw Dorchester's first Brown Pelicans: 4 immatures on July 4, 1992, right after my outboard started to fail in the middle of the ominous "impact area". There were 85 here today. A group of 288 Mute Swans plus another flock of 10. A Red-breasted Merganser. An adult Bald Eagle perched on a dead tree washed up on the sand. The 2 little groups of persimmons have washed away but used to support a small, mixed heronry. BLOODSWORTH ISLAND. We slowly motored up narrow, straight, deep Fin Creek, which penetrates the center of Bloodsworth for over a mile. Circa 118 Great Blue Herons nests on the entire island, about average, many of them on the phone pole type platforms erected for them 7 or so years ago, which have been very well-received. Fin Creek used to have a long grove of mature loblollies on its main hammock until the 1960's. Bloodsworth has been a naval weapons testing area for nearly 60 years, but, and this is incredible, still seems almost pristine. Local lore says the pines were destroyed by stray shelling or napalm. A group of 43 Black-crowned Night Herons and 4 Yellow-crowneds. Flying insects: Monarch, anglewing sp., Buckeye, Mourning Cloak, Painted Skimmer, Green Darner. Today we saw Mute Swan broods at Spring, Holland, and Pone islands. A crippled female Surf Scoter at Bishop's Head Point, the Scylla and Charbybdis of this area, where wind, tide, and waves sometimes come from different directions. Today was calm here but with an impressive tideline cleaving the waters. We pull the boat at Crocheron at 4:55 P.M.-Harry Armistead. "We have lingered in the chambers of the sea With sea girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Til human voices wake us, and we drown." - T. S. Eliot. ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================