Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 10:04:00 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Dorchester County May 18 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline May 18, 2003, Sunday. Overcast, light rain in the A.M. and then again at dusk. 48-55 degrees F. Winds NE 5 m.p.h. A very good spring for dandelions and buttercups. The Black Locusts in our yard, in contrast to those almost everywhere else, have a very subdued blossoming this spring. Nice to have a relaxing day free of any overbearing Big Day agenda. But it was cold and raw. Much of the day I wore my light REI gloves and full-length camouflage body suit. Blackwater N.W.R. 8 A.M. - 1 P.M. 4 Cattle Egret, 2 pintail (a pair), 20 Bald Eagles, 40 Semipalmated Plovers, 7 Spotted, 950 Semipalmated, 225 Least & 3 White-rumped sandpipers, 625 Dunlin, 1 Caspian & 4 Least terns, 1 kingfisher, 2 Cliff Swallows, and 3 Grasshopper Sparrows. Most of the shorebirds were in Pool 5. Also: 1 Fox Squirrel (super pooh). 2 persons on my bird walk today in the rain: Levin Willey & myself. Maple Dam Road, the new impoundments. Single drake Green-winged Teal and American Wigeon, a Wild Turkey gobbling off in the woods somewhere, 850 Semipalmated & 100 Least sandpipers, 1000 Dunlin, and loads of swallows, swifts, and martins coursing over the impoundments, flying low, as they were also along Wildlife Drive at Blackwater. Bestpitch Bridge (Transquaking River). 4 young Barn Swallows in a nest under the bridge. 2 male martins, a House Sparrow, and a Least Tern perched on the same martin house. 1 Pileated Woodpecker, 20 Semipalmated Plovers, 30 Least Sandpipers, 14 Forster's Terns, 8 Snowy & 1 Great Egret. Decoursey Bridge: Snowy Egret 9, Common Moorhen 1, Forster's Tern 5, and an active Osprey nest. Lewis Wharf Road: 2 Royal Terns and 2 ad. Bald Eagles over the Nanticoke River. Invasive Japanese Knotweed lines the banks here. Elliott Island Road. 4 - 8 P.M. 1 Common Loon, 22 Brown Pelicans (on pound nets visible in the distance from the McCready's Creek ramp), 1 American Bittern (well seen, flying over the Juncus grass; been years since I saw one on E.I.R.), a brood of 6 downy young black ducks, 2 Gadwall (missed on the May 10 count), 2 male Canvasbacks, 2 Lesser Scaup, 1 female Black Scoter, 3 Ruddy Ducks, 11 Bald Eagles, 2 harriers, 1 Clapper & 5 Virginia Rails, 3 Common Moorhens, 12 Semipalmated Plovers, 12 Black-necked Stilts (my personal best here; most in the vicinity of the crude, rough launching area at Island Creek), 2 turnstones, 55 Dunlin, 30 Royal & 1 Least Tern, and 7 Boat-tailed Grackles. Also: 1 Sika Elk and 9 White-tailed Deer. Tide very high from days of NE winds and a leftover full moon with c. 200 feet of road under tidal water just north of the Green Island Hunt Club (Pokata Creek Bridge), which is on the verge of collapse. 2 Gray Squirrels near Murdza's. At least one (very large) young Bald Eagle in the nest visible west of the "Moorhen Spot". A couple of times it jumped up in the air and flapped its wings. The nest c. 200 yards NE of Elliott Creek Bridge seems to be empty, although a pair of adults is present. BLACKWATER HERON MYSTERY. For several years now herons have been piling into the willows of Pool 3 at dusk in the spring and fall. They don't nest there, so what is going on? Are they younger birds not yet old enough to breed? Levin Willey has been keeping track of them. He says the Great Egrets come from the southwest, the snowies from the east. On May 10 he counted at dusk 257 Great, 180 Snowy & 2 Cattle Egrets plus 5 Black-crowned Night herons and 88 Wood Ducks. These are all far more than my party of 4 found on that date in the entire southern part of the county covering a route of 200 or so miles. "Rigby's Folly", Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, near Bellevue. May 17: Common Loon 5, Mute Swan 61, Surf Scoter 1, and Willet 1 (4th property record, one other one being on a May 17, in 1980) and 9 deer (does). May 18, 2 adult Bald Eagles at their new favorite perch, a large dead oak, at 6 A.M. 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================