Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 13:17:18 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Dorchester County July 27 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. July 26, 2003. 5:45 P.M. - 9:15 P.M. 2 each of Great Blue and Green Herons, Great and Snowy Egrets. 1 of the snowies had all yellow-green legs, brighter on their backsides, thought it was a young Little Blue Heron at first. 1 female Wild Turkey, running around all over the place, great big strides, like a small Velociraptor. 1 hummingbird flying across the cove 10 minutes after sunset. 1 Blue Grosbeak singing. 27 Laughing, 7 Ring-billed and 1 Herring gull in the cove plus 3 Forster's Terns. Listened for Chuck-will's-widows but no luck. The Beatles, the fab two. Still quite a few fireflies at dusk, weaving their seemingly tentative sky dances. Found a whopper of a beetle on the lawn, dead on the grass. It's over 1.75 inches long, resembles closely in shape, pattern of markings, and coloration the Eastern Hercules Beetle shown on plate 8 of Richard E. White's "A field guide to the beetles of North America" (Peterson field guide series 29, Houghton Mifflin, 1983), but its head is more distinct, differing from the somewhat fused head-thorax shown for the Hercules, and its legs end with paired talon-like projections rather than the 4-pronged grappling hook type legs of the Herc. It is a MAJOR bug, to be sure. My friend, George Reiger, of impressive proportions himself, is fond of beetles and on one occasion did a hilarious, menacing impression of one for us. "Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;" - Thomas Gray, 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard'. Ode to a toad. A half-grown Fowler's Toad was in our seemingly airtight, new garage. While dining on the dock (Wawa shepherd's pie, really more like beef stew with some mashed potatoes thrown in) I heard what sounded like distant Green Tree Frogs. I have only heard them once before here, one calling halfheartedly on June 28, 1997, on the edge of Field 6. Drove over to Tranquility and clearly heard at least 2 calling, probably from around the pond next to the Campers' old place, perhaps half a mile south from the dock. As I was listening for chucks they could still be heard, about half a mile to the west. That far away they sound somewhat like Canada Geese, when THEY duet. When I turned in at 9:45 I could still hear them from my bed. Elsewhere I have written: ... "beautiful, languorous choruses of Green Tree Frogs, with their haunting, cowbell-like, antiphonal quality ... " Sorry about that, but doesn't everyone sooner or later try to sound a little artsy-craftsy once in a while? Also: 13 deer (does) and 1 cottontail. Bugs: Several Common Wood nymphs, Blue Dashers, and Common Whitetails. The SAV in the cove remains very good in spite of the presence of Mute Swans. I have not seen any Sea Nettles yet. They're late because of so much rain, I'd guess. The fields have still not been worked by farmer John Swaine. Finally it is starting to dry out a little. Dorchester County, July 27, Sunday. Overcast to fair, 85-92 degrees F., winds SW 15-25-10 m.p.h. Hot, humid, but not very buggy. The strong breeze saved the day. 11:30 A.M. - 6:30 P.M. Hurlock Wastewater Treatment Plant. 22 Ruddy Ducks (14 of them males) actively feeding, in the 2 east cells as usual. Also: 2 Blue, 4 Snow, and 18 Canada Geese, 12 rough-winged, 475 Bank, 25 Barn and 40 Tree swallows plus 30 Purple Martins, 6 Spotted Sandpipers, 55 Mallards, and flocks of 210 and 45 cowbirds. A few Buckeyes and Black Swallowtails. Hurlock has to be the Red-bellied Turtle capital of the world. Scores were here including 3 recently dead on the dikes. 2 Short-billed Dowitchers continuously hovered over the Mallards out in the water of the one of the cells. I think they thought the Mallards were either on an exposed sandbar or WERE a sandbar. Once at Elliott Island on the Dorchester Christmas count we saw a pair of oystercatchers far offshore hovering and circling closely for a couple of minutes over a large Canvasback flock in this same manner. In both cases it looked as if the shorebirds were actually going to LAND on the ducks! Blackwater N.W.R. Mostly shot the breeze with Tom Miller. Quite bleak here. 115 Canada Geese, 7 Bald Eagles, 3 Caspian Terns (at Sewards), and 1 kingfisher (a postbreeding bird; they don't nest locally). 1 Hackberry Butterfly nectaring on Trumpet Creeper on the dike next to Pool 1, has a proboscis that won't quit. 1 Black Swallowtail. Maple Dam Road. The new impoundments here, just north of where Greenbrier Road goes off to the east, have experienced great cattail growth since the spring. In May they were loaded with shorebirds. Now the plants are so high it would be hard to see a Giant Moa. Elliott Island Road. 4 P.M. - 6:30 P.M. 2 harriers, 7 Short-billed Dowitchers, 2 Least Sandpipers, 7 Greater Yellowlegs, 2 Tricolored Herons, 2 Willets (Hey, you two, you're supposed to be outta here by now), 18 Boat-tailed Grackles, 1 meadowlark, 4 Bald Eagles, 2 Bank Swallows, and 24 Canada Geese. Still quite a few Marsh Wrens and Seaside Sparrows singing and doing aerial displays plus a singing Song Sparrow. If I'd had on my hearing aids my totals would have been considerably higher: Seaside Sparrow 26, Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow 6, Marsh Wren 6. Took a 200-yard walk in the marsh at "Gadwall" bend thinking a dozen ducks might be such but they were American Black Ducks when they flushed. Some of the Seaside and Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrows flushed in quite compact groups of 3 or 4, perhaps family groups, although the ONLY familial task the male Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow does is to impregnate the female. He's the ultimate MCP. The Mute Swan family reported on July 17 at the "Moorhen Spot" actually consists of 4 cygnets, not 3. This is such a shallow, confined area I don't see how the swans can ever get airborne. ON the Elliott Rd.: 1 Painted Turtle, 1 3' foot, heavily-engorged water snake, 1 dead 4' Black Rat Snake. Plant news. The marsh hibiscus is starting to bloom, the big white ones. Didn't see any of the smaller pinks yet. The seed heads of the 'Spartina cynosuroides' are well-filled out now. My last visit here, on July 17, these things hadn't happened yet. Cynosuroides looks so much like Phragmites but is not invasive. They're easy to tell apart when the seed heads are developed. "Cyno" grows, usually in narrow stands, along the tidal creeks of south Dorchester, especially along Elliott Island Road. Marsh wrens and sparrows like to take shelter in it in late summer. Trappe. 7:19 P.M. At least 70 vultures roosting in the big communications tower south of town. On another tower, this one perhaps 150 feet high in the middle of a large field, there is an active Osprey nest. This is 0.9 miles north of the intersection of 404 X 309 just s. of Ruthsberg Rd. (Rt. 481) in Queen Annes County and a good mile from any big water. No Snowy Egrets all day. Cicadas are "calling" now. They weren't on my July 17 visit. The area corn fields are impressive, reminding me of the great ones in Iowa. From the end of Elliott Island Road it is 173 miles to home. On Sunday nights it often happens that I am on this route between 8 and 9 P.M. when "With heart and voice" airs on 89.5 FM. This is sacred (Christian) choral music. I am not devout but I do imagine a spirituality when I am in the midst of great landscapes. This wonderful program, with its no nonsense Englishman host, certainly is one of the things, in addition to caffeine, that helps transport me home, for that one hour (and in the glow afterwards). Last night's program included two hymns from 'the Complete new English Hymnal', which I think he said consisted of 12 CD's. It really is amazing what is available out there, if you have the time to listen. Last winter during one episode the host, in a feature called "What's new in choral music", played a selection from a recording of 16th century music. What's new indeed, but then, it took several hundred years for Galileo to get the O.K. Capitalizations. Several have asked ... I try in my postings to consistently capitalize the first letters of bird species names according to the conventional way this is done in the professional ornithological literature. Thus: Eastern Bluebird, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, and so on as opposed to bluebird, warbler, gnatcatcher, etc., if the species is not specified. I also like to do this with plants and animals other than birds. It gives the various species a recognition, a dignity even, that is appealing. If I am not sure of the species, as in "firefly" above, then there's nothing in caps. With a list, I think it is proper not to put an initial cap on the name, as in Herring and Ring-billed gulls. Best to all.-Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA 19119-1225. 215-248-4120. 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