Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 10:47:07 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Hooper's, Blackwater & Rigby Nov. 24 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline November 24, 2002, a.k.a. Sunday. Clear, 36 - 60 degrees F. Wind light and variable, sometimes from the NW, sometimes the SW, but often calm. A gem of a day. Today's sunset was a beauty. IMPORTANT: Blackwater will be the site of the annual deer hunt soon. Most but not all of Wildlife Drive (specifically the eastern portions - those nearest the usual entrance) will be closed on Monday, Dec. 2, and Friday, Dec. 6. If I heard right over 1,000 persons will be hunting ... not as bad as it sounds as it is spread out over several weeks and 20,000+ acres, and I think each person can only hunt one day and is limited to shotgun or muzzleloader use here, mostly in remote areas far removed from Wildlife Drive. However, countywide, rifles can be used starting on Nov. 30 and running (I think) 2 weeks. Speaking for myself, I do not want to bird this county on opening day on Nov. 30 (but probably will anyway next weekend). I've done it and listening to the frequent firing of rifle slugs (which can carry > a mile) makes for some discomfort. Blackwater N.W.R. 7 - 11:15 A.M. 14 persons on the birdwalk, some just briefly, including citizens from Japan and Thailand. Nothing really unusual. Pintail was the commonest duck today (c. 225) with 8 shovelers and 60 Green-winged Teal, 11 Bald Eagles, 275 Dunlin, 9 Forster's Terns & good looks at a couple of Ruby-crowned Kinglets. 1 Fox Squirrel. Swan Harbor Road, Hooper's Island. Did a hawkwatch 11:40 A.M. - 12:40 P.M. Light winds but nevertheless there was something of a flight anyway with the raptors heading north: 56 Turkey & 5 Black Vultures; 1 Cooper's, 4 Sharp-shinned, & 4 Red-tailed Hawks; 1 ad. female Northern Harrier; 5 Bald and 1 terrific-looking juvenile Golden Eagle (well seen at 32X, the white areas at the base of the flight feathers and tail sharp and distinct) = a total of 77 raptors. The 56 TV's were a maximum count of this species that were in sight at one time, most of these in one big kettle. Also in migration: 25 waxwings, 1 flicker, 3 Killdeer and 3 House Finches. Not bad for one hour at mid-day on a seemingly "poor" day for a flight. The results of a season-long hawk watch at this site (which will never happen) would be most interesting. Also on Hooper's Island: 40 Brown Pelicans (resting on their favorite tump - at the south end of Barren Island) and 2 Northern Gannets (way offshore, diving, probably over 3 miles away). "Rigby's Folly", Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, near Bellevue. 2:30 - 5 P.M. The Choptank River mouth was glassy calm, the visibility exceptional, but there was not a GREAT deal there: 490 Buffleheads, 85 Long-tailed Ducks, 185 Herring Gulls, 1 Forster's Tern, 1 Red-breasted Merganser, and 7 Common Loons but no Horned Grebes or Surf Scoters or other divers. Elsewhere on the back 40: 2 ad. Bald Eagles, 1 going to roost at dusk near its nest. Visibility was so good that I could count the stakes on the pound nets s. of Tilghman Island and see birds on them with the 32X Leica scope; that's 7 miles from our property shoreline! And the clearest I've ever seen these stakes from our shore, the equivalent of seeing them at c. 1,150 feet naked eye. Once on a winter day of perfect clarity I was able to see cormorants on Sharp's Island Light, 11 miles away; you could see them leave the light and dip down toward the water's surface the way cormorants do, then gain altitude again, a rough equivalent of 725 feet naked eye through an 80X Questar. The Tilghman I. stakes are a favored place for Brown Pelicans. If they were there and had flown I would have been able to ID them at this distance. So ... there is STILL just one record of Brown Pelican for the yard list, an immature seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Fran on September 7, 1996. Mammals: 2 cottontails (bunnies are furtive except in the warm months ... nice to see these 2, and they were fat), 1 Raccoon, 9 deer (all does), 4 Gray Squirrels, 2 unidentified small bats, and, best of all, 1 Red Bat, well-seen, watched for 10 minutes or so, just before sunset as it hunted next to the woods. Years ago I inadvertently caught one in my mist nets nearby. John L. Paradiso's "Mammals of Maryland" (U. S. Dept. of the Interior, 1969; North American Fauna 66) p. 54-56, gives a good account of this species describing how David Bridge used to regularly catch them in his mist nets on Kent Island at Kent Point after fall cold fronts. The illustrations in my old edition of Burt & Grossenheider (the Peterson guide) and in the Audubon mammal guide do not do justice to the brightness of the Red Bat's bright rufous fur. The books say it is one of the few mammals with a big difference in the coloration between males and females, the males being much brighter rufous. They are widespread and common but I haven't been lucky enough to see them very often, although I have lucked onto them on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge & Tunnel. Orange Sulphur. The only butterfly today: 1 at Hooper's I., 2 at Blackwater & 1 at Rigby. Best to all.-Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA 19119-1225. 215-248-4120. 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