Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 20:50:31 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Ferry Neck Jan. 12 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline "Rigby's Folly", Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, near Bellevue. Sunday, January 12, 2003. 8 A.M. - 1 P.M. Clear. Cold, 26-32 degrees F. Wind NW 25-20. Tide very low. 36 species. My record for a full day in January is 54 on Jan. 1, 1955, but I haven't done such days often and 60 is probably possible. An unremarkable day yet worth remarking on anyway. Most birds were seen on a 3.5 hr. morning walk. 1 Horned Grebe, 42 Mute & 14 Tundra Swans, 1 Richardson's Goose (13th property record), 5 Surf Scoters, 4 goldeneyes, 2 Red-breasted Mergansers, 2 Red-tailed Hawks (an ad. & an imm.), 8 Carolina Chickadees, 1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet, 45 robins, 1 thrasher, 95 waxwings (highest property count other than numerous higher fall ones; few were seen on the 7 C.B.C.'s I participated in), and 12 cardinals (7 males in sight together on the ground on a field edge; pretty). Even considering that it was blowing hard and I did not use a scope, the Choptank River was pretty bleak. No mammals. About half of the Olszewski trails were under (frozen) water. Fun to walk on this, slippin' and slidin', each step taking 2-3 seconds to break through the ice. At the end of this circular trail my breakthroughs had already largely refrozen. My theory is that the terrible drought last summer made the ground so hard that much of the surface water still has not been absorbed that normally would have been (?). Some daffodils already up 1.5" or so. Cove half frozen. 2 out of 9 mouse traps successful since my last visit on Dec. 15. Late last year I was getting House Mice. Today's were white-bellied mice, presumably White-footed Mice. Both are cute but nevertheless unwelcome. Found a wooden duck call on one of the trails. AFLAC. A deer corpse is in Field 6. My bedroom finally rose from 37 degrees F. last night to 60 degrees around sunrise thanks to that dandy spaceheater from Lowe's. Hope to get a furnace or electric baseboard heat in a few years. The phones don't work (good!). No electric outages in the past 4 weeks, which is unusual. I don't know why some of my Talbot County postings have such format irregularity and lack of justification within the paragraphs. This does not seem to happen on MDOSPREY or VA-BIRD. My apologies and I do need to get a new computer. 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================