Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 10:53:51 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Ferry Neck & Dorchester March 15-16 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. March 15, 2003, Saturday. 6:45 A.M. - 6:45 P.M. Clear to fair to overcast, 32 - 60 - 51 degrees F., winds calm - SW 5 - 10- 5 - calm. Tide L - H - L. 51 species. Became clear again after sunset. Red-throated Loon 1 (9th record overall & earliest for spring). Double-crested Cormorant 1. Tundra Swan 165 (mostly migrants headed out). Snow Goose 1 adult. Canada Goose 1,100 (many migrants, flying high; 1 Richardson's Goose). Ring-necked Duck 1 female (3rd record; well-seen [and heard!]). Surf Scoter 510. Bufflehead 275. Osprey 1 (caught a White Perch in the cove). Great Black-backed Gull 8 (scarce here; 5 were flying high, migrating north, not often I see them in actual migration). Northern Cardinal 17. Sixteen waterfowl species including a pair of Wood Ducks on the Pond and a male American Wigeon hanging with the 35 Canvasbacks. Surprisingly few Lesser Scaup (16; compare with 520 on March 17, 1995). Mammals: 2 Eastern Cottontails, 2 Gray Squirrels, 6 deer (does), 1 (possibly 2) Red Fox (trotting through the yard between the house and the cove), 1 Raccoon (feeding on corn I had put out an hour earlier). Nice chorus of Chorus Frogs in W2, W3 and W4 plus some Spring Peepers at dusk in W4 (these alphanumeric designations signify different woodlots). House trapline report: 2 White-footed Mice caught since last weekend, a third caught during the course of today. A little skim ice in some ditches after sunrise. Remnants of the ice and snow pack c. 100 yards long and 15 feet wide along the south side of Big Field. Some ice still in woods. Ground surprisingly firm considering the wet winter but has all dried out a lot since last weekend. Cut most of the Loblollies that had been hopelessly bent by the snows along the Olszewski Trails plus some of the Black Locust fallen this winter in the yard. Put up 2 bluebird boxes. March 16, Sunday. 6:30 A.M. - 6:30 P.M., Clear - fair - overcast, 43 - 65+ - 57 degrees F. (at 6 P.M.), winds calm most of the day, sometimes SW 5, changing to light NE at end of day, light, warm rain overspreading the area late in the day c. 3 P.M. and intensifying somewhat towards dusk. Rigby's Folly. 6:30 - 9:30 A.M. Talbot County Bird Club field trip led by Les Coble. Thirteen of us including Jan Reese, Marge Steffens, Austin Farley, the Novaks, Terry Allen, Levin Willey et al. Red-necked Grebe 1 (seen 5 minutes after the others left; caught a small fish and ate it in our cove; I had offered anyone in the group who spotted one the first 40 species accounts of "Birds of North America", a c. $180 value, since I happen to have duplicates of these; 2nd record; other one seen by Van Hubbard and I on March 30, 1963; during the invasion of 1994 I was overwhelmed with work and could not get out to look for them). Ruddy Duck 2. Single perched Cooper's, Sharp-shinned and Red-shouldered Hawks. Wild Turkey 4 (near Royal Oak). Forster's Tern 2 (earliest ever, by 3 days, but not surprising). Pileated Woodpecker 1. Pine Warbler 2. Chorus Frogs calling again. Some big schools of minnows around the dock - Forster's Tern, grebe food. The rest of the day in Dorchester County: Maple Dam Road, c. 0.5 miles n. of the T-junction of Key Wallace Drive X Maple Dam Rd. Nice new, large impounded areas created from fields on the west side of the road. Levin Willey drew my attention to these. Can be well-observed from road shoulder from several vantage points. DO NOT GO OFF ROAD SHOULDER. Canada Goose 975, Green-winged Teal 70, Mallard 20, pintail 10, shoveler 10, Gadwall 8, American Wigeon 10, Killdeer 1, Greater Yellowlegs 6, Lesser Yellowlegs 16, Least Sandpiper 2, Pectoral Sandpiper 13 (Levin saw them at 4 places in the county in one day recently), Laughing Gull 2, Ring-billed Gull 125. Nice spot. Some of the wet areas are quite grassy. Good Ruff habitat. Blackwater N.W.R. Great Blue Heron (the 4 nests from last year in the Observation Point spur are unattended). Snow Goose 9 plus 1 Blue. Ring-necked Duck 29 (Pool 1). Common Merganser 5. Forster's Tern 1. Ran into Gregory Inskip this week again who had just seen what he designated as a 2nd year female Golden Eagle at Bestpitch. Greg says that about this time of year the adult goldens leave the area, followed later by the immatures. Edward W. Marshall and I once saw a juvenile bird on the refuge on the May count. Greg and I and Tom Miller chatted outside the Visitors Center for a while while I was giving Tom a roadkill Fox Squirrel found c. 0.5 mile west on the Key Wallace Drive shoulder (even if the animal cannot be mounted someone makes use of them for DNA studies). Interesting listening to Tom relate his experience with capturing and handling Whooping Cranes in Florida. Greg had also seen a Peregrine Falcon today just north of Easton. Big choruses of Southern Leopard Frogs at the refuge. Does anyone know if Wood Frogs are found here? Some of the frogs I heard today sounded like Wood Frogs. Madison. 1 Red-necked Grebe in Madison Bay seen from Madison Canning House Road. Thanks to Levin for putting me onto this, too. The trailer park at Madison, complete with sports bar, is something of an eyesore, although I realize we can't all have 120-acre entailed estates. Taylor's Island: Red-throated Loon (in the Bay seen from south Punch I. at very close range). Red-necked Grebe 1 (on Chapel Cove). Canvasback 65. Bald Eagle 3 adults (roosting in big trees at dusk). Cooper's Hawk 1 immature female. Forster's Tern 5. Also 5 Sika Elk. This is only a mile or so from James Island from which they escaped last century and proceeding to populate much of south Dorchester County. It is amusing to see them sometimes do these high hops while staying in-place, then bound off into the woods with the conspicuous white hair suddenly flaring out on their furry buttocks. I've been mooned by better animals than these. Drove the entire paved road system here. I have not been to Taylor's for years and was amazed that it had not changed much. Much of it is still wild and lovely with fine Loblolly forests, some marsh, boggy scrub areas, fields that don't seem to see much agriculture and have nice growths of panic grass and broom sedge, and frequent access to views of big, open water and Bay areas from public roads. Some recently-lumbered tracts should be excellent for Prairie Warblers. Plan to walk The Nature Conservancy's Ewing Tract on Robinson Neck soon. A real spectacle, however, is Taylor's Island Family Campground, a hodge podge of cheek-by-jowl small mobile homes and trailers jam-packed together, would have inspired several Erskine Caldwell novels. Nevertheless, there was a Sanderling roosting with Ring-bills on top of the bulkhead there (very high receding tide at the time). At 5:30 P.M. in the rain ran into a couple from Baltimore who I had bumped into at Elliott Island back in January, a real coincidence. Their Ring-necked Pheasants plus my 6 totalled at least 12 birds (mostly cocks) on the NE part of the island at the end of Hooper Neck Road. There are 3 lovely old churches on Hooper Neck Rd., 2 with attendant graveyards. Grace Episcopal Church is especially nice. Very pleasant to drive these often wild roads in the gentle, warm spring rain with the windows down and a really good program on 98.5 including Brahms 3rd, Mozart's 40th, and selections of Vivaldi and Bach (but blasting out selections from the Encyclopedia of Doo Wop is what helps keep me awake on the 150-mile drive back to Philadelphia). The hatchback of my new car when opened permits use of my tripod and scope sheltered from the rain. The very changeable gray skies today combined with the beautiful scenery were most affecting. I hope they never build a second bridge here from the western shore as has been threatened. Forgive any excess of detail ... Meanwhile George and Marshall were birding up north at Hurlock and the Pig Farm on Indiantown Road. 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================