Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 10:25:26 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Deal I. & Fairmount March 7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Somerset County, MD, Thu., March 7, 2002. Fair, 39 - 65 degrees F., winds southerly 10 - 5 - less, tide extremely low all day. 5:30 A.M. - 6:30 P.M. (13 big ones). Spent most of the day in the marshes or on the Bay shore. A gem of a day. 74 species. Deal Island, 5:30 A.M. - 1:15 P.M. Slept in the back of my truck at the end of Riley Roberts Rd. Two miles from the nearest lights or houses the night sky is lovely here. 157 Common Loons seen at one time from Deal Pt. (the public boat landing) far out on Tangier Sound. At first I didn't believe it thinking they might be gulls in the haze, then a marine police boat flushed them and they all went galumphing south towards Smith I., allowing this probably almost exact count. It seems to me this is a huge number for any time in the spring for the Bay, much less in early March. The Deal I. W.M.A. impoundment is very low and slimy, perfect for dabblers: 560 Green-winged Teal, 360 black ducks, 12 Mallards, 160 pintails, 2 Blue-winged Teal, 70 shovelers, 160 Gadwall and 1200 American Wigeon plus 12 Pied-billed Grebes, 18 Hooded Mergansers, 1640 Tundra Swans and 660 Canada Geese incl. an all dirty-white one except that the neck and head were normal. I didn't scope the ducks, which are very skittish, but I am sure Eurasian Wigeon must still be there and probably also a Eurasian Teal somewhere. Lots of fowl offshore, too, in Tangier Sound: 1100 Long-tailed Ducks (very garrulous), 2345 Surf Scoters, 75 goldeneye, 115 Buffleheads and 6 Red-breasted Mergansers. In the quite calm, clear, early morning with good visibility it was easy to scope these birds far offshore and also to see such landmarks as the 2 hacking towers on South Marsh I. and the one on Spring I. plus one of the two on Smith I. and the great blue nest platforms on Bloodsworth I. as well as the huge crane on Smith I. at Tylerton and the radio tower at Ewell, Solomons Lump light (the world's ugliest), etc., some of these over 8 miles away. It was also nice to see 2 working skipjacks and 5 scrapers, so there's something out there to catch in spite of the sorry condition of the Bay. That's why the marine police were out there checking up on things. Also at Deal: 9 Horned Grebes, an ad. gannet, 145 Double-crested Cormorants (all roosting on offshore structures in Monie Bay), an Osprey (on the nest platform nearest the transfer station; a male, I think), 3 Bald Eagles (flushed the ducks several times), 1 ad. peregrine (on top of the Deal hacking tower), 11 harriers, 3 Clapper Rails, 2 oystercatchers (at the harbor in Wenona), 7 Greater Yellowlegs, 1 Laughing Gull (breeding plumage), 4 Tree Swallows, 1600 Fish Crows (dawn flight) and 1 Marsh Wren (flying over the needlerush just as they do in summer). One broom sedge field in a recently-lumbered area had a resounding chorus of Chorus Frogs. Butterflies: Two small sulphurs (Orange?) and a small white job I assume is a European Cabbage White. Four deer (does). Lunched at the launching ramp at Champ where there was the day's only kingfisher plus a Sea Walnut. Fairmount. 2 - 6:30 P.M.: The "transfer station" (a landfill by any other name would smell as sweet) on the N. side of Rt. 361 (east of Fairmount and Millard Long Rd.) had hundreds of gulls but they were kettling up high so I didn't stay to scope them. The manager says birders must look from the paved road and cannot drive up on the fill. Scanning over the fill once there were 8 Red-tailed Hawks in the air plus big numbers of the usual suspects down low near the goodies and hors d'oeuvres: TV's, starlings and Fish Crows. Fairmount W.M.A. Walked over 4 miles around all the dikes. 4 Black-crowned Night Herons (at dusk), 225 Green-winged Teal, 80 black ducks, 8 Mallards, 2 pintails, 3 Blue-winged Teal, 5 harriers, 1 Clapper Rail, 11 Greater Yellowlegs, 1 screech and 1 horned owl (calling spontaneously at 3:45), 1 Short-eared Owl (nice view at 6:15), a Hairy Woodpecker, 16 Tree Swallows and 1 Brown-headed Nuthatch. One small impoundment had a huge chorus of Southern Leopard Frogs, another larger one was loaded with leopards and Spring Peepers. Not too many birds in the impoundments, really. One deer (doe). Interesting, perhaps significant, misses: any of the southern/summer herons, Mute Swan, Wood Duck, Forster's Tern, none of the 5 pochards, and Rough-legged Hawk. The male Purple and Boat-tailed Grackles in fresh plumage in the sun really are spectacular at this time of year as mundane as finding these species may be. Most of the protected tidal guts, small ditches, etc., were loaded with minnows, but I didn't see any attendant birds to eat them. Some of the ditches at Fairmount W.M.A. have water that looks like liquid rust, yet throng with minnows. This is curious. I also wonder why there was such a very low tide all day long yet there was a good south wind flow which normally builds in the tide and the moon was about in the last quarter. Pray for rain. Best to all.-Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA 19119-1225. 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================