Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 10:39:29 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Elliott Island July 21 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Elliott Island Road in its entirety from Vienna to McCready's Creek and also including Kraft Neck Rd. & Henry's Cross Road, Dorchester County, MD, July 21, 2002, 5 A.M. - 7 P.M. 74 - 93 degrees F. Clear to partly cloudy. Winds NE - SW 10-20 but calm sometimes. Foggy until 9 A.M. 65 mi. by car. 98 species. 7 heron species (in low numbers, e.g. 6 Snowy and 9 Great Egrets); 5 waterfowl (no teal or Gadwalls); only 7 Bald Eagles; only 5 bobwhite; 5 shorebird species (incl. 35 Least Sandpipers); Forster's Tern 20 (only at the Vienna waterfront); 11 screech owls (landbirds responded very well to my screech owl calls all day, as did the owls; once at c. 9 A.M. in bright sunlight 3 screech owls responded at one spot); 5 Chuck-will's-widows; 6 Yellow-billed Cuckoos; 2 ad. Red-headed Woodpeckers; 14 Downy Woodpeckers; 1 Eastern Phoebe (near Draw Bridge, most unusual bird of the day, such as it is, scarce breeder in the s. part of the county); 22 Carolina Chickadees; 17 Tufted Titmice; 7 Brown-headed Nuthatches; 29 Gray Catbirds; 3 Cedar Waxwings; 7 warbler species, incl. a female Prothonotary with its stubby-tailed juvenile in attendance; 2 Summer Tanagers; 15 Blue Grosbeaks; 3 Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed & 22 Seaside Sparrows. Misses and squeakers: Mallard 1, American Black Duck 1, Northern Harrier 1, rails 0, Black-necked Stilt 0, Willet 0 (gone for the year?), Great Horned Owl 1, Blue Jay 0, Field Sparrow 2, Eastern Meadowlark 2. Never take anything for granted. I did no rail tapeing. Many potholes, not tide-dependant apparently, are bone dry, perhaps why the stilts were not seen. I spent much of the day spishing and screech-owling in mainland woods and in marsh hammocks for passerines and only so many hours in the marsh. Even so the marsh was subdued and rather barren and dry enough so I could easily walk around in the Spartina meadows in my top-siders. Postbreeding birds, marginally migrant: American Kestrel 1, Belted Kingfisher 1 female, Bank Swallow 2. Osprey 45. Vienna has an impressive concentration of nests on pilings, utility poles, and metal towers, at least 12 nests within a c. sq. mi. area. Once 19 adults were in sight from one spot near the Rt. 50 bridge. Nice but lost some its luster when the teens swimming in the Rt. 50 borrow pit were mooning me. Bottoms up to our youth, tomorrow's hope, one is led to believe. Other life forms: 1 Red Fox, 3 rabbits, 5 deer, 1 Gray Tree Frog (only frog heard), several lovely clusters of Sea Pink on the east side of the road. "Rigby's Folly", Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, near Bellevue. Sat., July 20. 2:30 - 9 P.M., took 2 hour nap. 30 species: 123 Mute Swans (but the S.A.V. in our cove is the best it has been in many years; the St. Michaels Christmas Bird Count here last year had the national high for mutes: 748, but has done even "better" in some years), 44 Laughing Gulls (evening flight, to roost on Poplar Island archipelago?), 1 Yellow-billed Cuckoo & 5 bluebirds (incl. 2 juveniles). The Carolina Wren nest in my boat reported here last week now has 3 eggs. Critters: 4 fawns, 3 does & 1 buck. I retrieved a Bald Eagle right primary feather that had been lying on the driveway for sometime; it is just over 18.75 inches long (unflattened). A quill such as this will do to sign a Magna Carta or two. Or you could go the other way, in the words of Dylan Thomas: "The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever. And famine grew, and locusts came. Great is the hand that holds dominion over man with a scribbled name." Found a mature but dead female Box Turtle (killed by the drought?). At the base of a medium-sized oak is what I guess is a sap seep where 2 Red-spotted Purples, 3 Common Wood nymphs, scores of various flies and yellowjackets, and 6 chunky, greenish-brown beetles, each the size of a fordhook lima, were "nectaring". Anybody have any idea what the beetles are called? Pray for rain. Best to all.-Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA 19119-1225. 215-248-4120. Please, any off-list replies 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================