Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2003 11:26:19 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: lower Eastern Shore June 1-5 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Dorchester, Somerset & Talbot counties, June 1-8 (a.k.a. Water World: water was in the sky, on the ground, and where it belongs - in the bays and rivers). Part 1. "Rigby's Folly", Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, near Bellevue. June 1, Sun. afternoon only. 3 Surf Scoters (but see under June 8 below), a nighthawk (unusual here in spring, a late migrant I'd say), 2 waxwings. Found a Raccoon in the middle of one grassy field I probably could have captured had I wished to. A Red Admiral investigating the boxwood. June 2, Mon. Dorchester County. 130 Ring-billed Gulls in a field s. of Cambridge seemed late. 2 Black-necked Stilts at Blackwater N.W.R., Pool 1 plus 240 Semipalmated and 3 White-rumped sandpipers at Blackwater R. X Route 335. 30 Semi. Sands. also at the Maple Dam Rd. impoundments, no doubt the same birds George A. saw on June 1 (along with some Dunlin I missed). Atlassed at Taylor's I. in Dorchester Co., 10 A.M. - 4 P.M, finding 70, 39 & 18 species in the 3 blocks I worked. Of most interest: 1 Brown Pelican, 65 cormorants, a kettle of 12 Black Vultures, a Broad-winged Hawk (late migrant), a Virginia Rail, 140 combined Common & Forster's terns, a screech-owl calling spontaneously in full sunlight at 2:26 P.M., a Hairy Woodpecker, a Brown-headed Nuthatch, a few waxwings, a Prairie Warbler, and a Field Sparrow. I ate lunch at the lovely old Chapel of Ease, Old Trinity Episcopal Church (1707) with its pointy roof covered with cedar shingles. A crested flycatcher was perched on one of the old gravestones. Less efficacious, one is forced to admit, was Wilde Ass Pointe Wildlife Refuge (sic), nice habitat but not too many birds. Certainly a name without pretensions. 29 Diamondback Terrapin seen from Hooper Neck Rd. at Cators Cove, an area that was loaded with pheasants last March. It was nice to have great views of a chat doing its exaggeratedly slow wing beats (as doves and alcids do sometimes) during its flight display. This same bird had one call that sounded just like a Belted Kingfisher's rattle. In the same field (junction of Pine Top Rd. X Hooper Neck Rd.) was a mockingbird that did a very good Least Sandpiper call imitation. Back at Rigby at 6:45 P.M. I watched from the end of the dock as a large Horseshoe Crab with a small one attached to its posterior steadily swam, at about the speed of a slow walking pace, along the cove bottom towards the head of the cove, a scene one could have witnessed during the Ordovician (or earlier) Period. Be good, you two, and raise a big family, say, 100,000 or so. This was my time machine experience of the day. June 3, Tues (incorrectly reported as June 2 in a posting I sent to the Talbot County e-mail chain and various individuals). 44 miles by boat in s. Dorchester and n. Somerset counties with Charlie Vaughn. 8:45 A.M. - 3:45 P.M. Water temp. in the low 60s. overcast, wind SW 15-20+, cool. A rather windy day limited how much we could do. When the rain began at 2:30 we headed back to the landing. Bloodsworth Island (Fin Creek), Dorchester County. We found the Great Blue Heron platforms built early last September by the U. S. Navy and others to be very well patronized with at least 120 occupied nests, up from last year. The most unusual bird of the day was a mockingbird - really out-of-place here - and the first I have ever seen at Bloodsworth. A Common Loon fly-over heading south. 24 species seen in a quick visit including 8 Yellow-crowned Night Herons, a kingbird, and a harrier. As in 2002 no great blues were nesting in the small eastern hammocks along Hooper Strait & Tangier Sound, where there used to be as many as 10 or so regularly. Uninhabited for many decades, Bloodsworth had 12 households in 1876, 4 of the Bloodsworths. Spring I., Dorchester. Scene of a pelican colony for the last several years. c. 150 pelicans present by no apparent nests seen from the boat. Instead there were over 155 cormorants, scores of them settled on their stick nests. Herring & Great Black-backed Gulls are nesting here. A Mute Swan pair had 1 downy cygnet. Also 2 oystercatchers, 2 Fish Crows, and 2 peregrines at the hacking tower. Only a few acres of marsh now, Spring I. was home to the Walters and Jones families in 1876. South Marsh Island (Somerset County). Stopped for over an hour at the small hammock on the east side south of Pungers Cove and south of the old hunt club. There used to be a small heronry here when there were more live trees. Now there are just 2 small Black Locusts and an American Hackberry and no herons. This is a near wilderness setting and it was delightful to spend some time walking around. Saw a beautiful, large, well-marked Mourning Cloak. Loads of lady bugs on the Baccharis bushes and fiddler crabs in the muddy marsh. 27 bird species including a kingbird, a Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow, a female yellowthroat, 1 YC Night Heron, 4 Clapper Rails, 2 harriers, and 2 peregrines at the nearby hacking tower. Two "ponds" here are the size of large rooms, 2 others are much smaller. These are lined with three-square. I'd imagine Least Bitterns and Soras investigating them in migration. Bloodsworth also has a pond like these. Pry Island, a satellite of South Marsh I. Here is a new Brown Pelican colony. In a hasty search we found 49 nests: 4 new ones w/o eggs, 5 with 1 egg, 24 with 2 eggs, and 16 with 3 eggs plus 2 cormorant nests with 2 eggs each. It would take a Ringler, Stasz, or Iliff to know but I think these may be the first breeding records for Somerset for the pelicans and cormorants. We found no nesting terns today but nearby West Island (another S. Marsh I. satellite) as well as Pry have had Common & Forster's terns nesting (or at least attempting to) in recent years as well as skimmers. A dead pelican at Pry today, 938-12969, was banded by John Weske at Oregon Inlet, NC, on July 5, 2000. Pry has nesting Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls. We found 37 Herring Gull nests. South Marsh must have always been low and marshy for the 1876 atlas maps show no one living here in 1876. June 4, Wed. rain. rested, did chores, paid bills, and did e-mail from the Easton Public Library. Saw the new Matrix movie. June 5, Thu. Dorchester County. Covered the atlas block that includes Hurlock Wastewater Treatment Plant, 8:30 A.M. - 1:30 P.M. Clear, 60-75 degrees F., winds NW 15-20+. 60 species. The sewage ponds as usual contained unseasonal waterfowl: a Tundra Swan, 2 Blue Geese (adults), 6 Snow Geese (5 ad., 1 imm.), a Common Loon, 8 Canada Geese, 2 Lesser Scaup, and 15 Ruddy Ducks (c. 10 of them ad. males) plus 35 or so adult Mallards with broods of 5, 9, 8, 8 & 5 ducklings. 7 Spotted Sandpipers were probably late migrants. Also of interest at this "inland" block were several active Osprey nests, a few Bank Swallows, and a male Baltimore Oriole carrying food. Butterflies here: Tiger Swallowtail, Red Admiral, Spring Azure, and Cabbage White. 5 d.o.r. Red-bellied Turtles were at the ponds and dozens of live ones. This must be, curiously, one of the best places in the state for these uncommon turtles. 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================