Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2001 23:10:43 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Ferry Neck, July 21-22 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Rigby's Folly, near Royal Oak, Talbot County, MD. I spent almost the entire weekend doing house chores related to extensive restoration work and hardly even got off the lawn. Sat., July 21. 1 Snowy Egret, 56 Mute Swans, 1 male Blue Grosbeak singing, 1 bobwhite calling (a rare event these past 2 summers; I used to find nests or see young every year right next to the yard area), 4 Common, 1 Royal & 2 Forster's Terns, 29 Laughing Gulls, 1 Yellow-billed Cuckoo, 2 kingbirds, 8 cormorants, 1 screech owl (doing the monotone call c. 3 A.M.). Listened in the evening until it was totally dark but no Chuck-will's-widows; guess they're finished for the year. Still a few fireflies and the cicadas are really making a racket. Butterflies for the weekend: 1 Buckeye, 2 Red-spotted Purples, 2 Common Wood Nymphs, 1 sulphur (sp.?), 2 Monarchs, 5 Red Admirals, 1 Question Mark, 2 Silver-spotted Skippers. Sun., July 22, Liz and I saw mostly the same birds but also 2 Least Skippers attending to the small white clover blossoms on the lawn. They seemed smaller than the blossoms. George says these are the smallest North American butterfly. Also today I found a Carolina Wren nest with 5 eggs inside the big lid of one of our Propane gas tanks, where they seem to nest almost every year. These tanks are unsightly but I am reluctant to have them replaced with an underground tank if it means I may be hearing "tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle, tea" less frequently on otherwise grim February mornings. Mammals: 3 cottontails, 4 does, and 1 squirreleepooh (Gray). Still lots of Fowler's Toads, esp. young uns. On VA-BIRD Ned Brinkley recently said many people in coastal Virginia are commenting on the scarcity of hummingbirds this year. From what I've seen I'd say the same thing for around the Rigby area. My mistake - I recently referred to the grounded target ship off Smith Island as the S.S. America. It's actually the American Mariner. Best to all.-Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA 19119. Any off list replies, please, to: harryarmistead@hotmail.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================