Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 11:24:46 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Ferry Neck Feb. 1 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, February 1, 2004. Up at 3 A.M. in Philadelphia after about 3 hours of sleep. I am getting too old for this. 5 cups of coffee in the course of the day are essential. IN THE DEAD OF WINTER. 6:30 A.M. - 6:15 P.M. Clear, 17 - 33 - 26 degrees F., winds NW 15 -10 - 5 - near calm at sunset. 1 inch or more of irregular snow on ground. A cold one but conditions are nowhere near as bleak as the winter of 1977. Following a five hour morning walk I spend a couple of hours in the afternoon taking measurements and notes related to the continuing house renovation Almost all tidal waters are frozen to the limit of visibility. The mouth of the Choptank River looks completely frozen although several miles out some of the waters in Harris Creek seem open. Much farther out the Bay is apparently open. A huge freighter can be seen heading south, probably at least 12 miles away since the Sharp's Island light is 11 miles from our shoreline and it is still shoal water there. The tidal ice is rather featureless and flat with no high pressure ridges such as there were during the winter of 1977, some 10 feet high near the mouth of Irish Creek. Back then I ventured out onto the ice a half mile from shore but it didn't seem like a good idea to do this today. On the south-facing edges of some woods and hedgerows there is quite a bit of bare ground devoid of snow. Here song birds foraged and were able to drink some of the meagre melt. All fresh water is frozen except for a 50 foot segment of the little rivulet flowing out of Frog Hollow. During Hurricane Isabel the tidal water was so high that this rivulet flowed backwards into Frog Hollow. The ground around many Red Cedars is covered with their berries. 46 species, including: Tundra Swan 185. Canada Goose 3,000. Hooded Merganser 2. Bald Eagle 1 (a huge, shaggy immature that landed on the ice near the waterfowl, which didn't seem that concerned). Northern Harrier 1 adult female (flushing geese out of the fields). Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 1 adult male. Hermit Thrush 3 (most winter days I don't see any here). American Robin 285 (feasting on American Holly berries). Brown Thrasher 1. American Pipit 17 (3rd highest property count). Myrtle Warbler 65 (highest property winter count). Eastern Towhee 6 (some feeding on greenbrier berries). Fox Sparrow 2. Swamp Sparrow 2 adults. Mammals: 6 Gray Squirrels, 1 Red Fox (trotted into view 20 feet from me, remained unaware of my presence for several seconds, then jumped over the bank and disappeared into the rip rap at W8; beautiful and well-furred), 9 deer (8 does and 1 small buck). Raccoon prints in the snow. The only open tidal waters within miles are 2 small areas at the mouth of Irish Creek, probably less than 2 acres combined ("Choptank polynyas"). These seem to be being maintained by the waterfowl. All the waterfowl I see are here: the CGs, Tundra Swan, and hoodies plus 20 Mute Swans, 3 black ducks, 2 Mallards, 30 Canvasbacks, 8 Lesser Scaup, 6 goldeneyes, and Buffleheads. As far as I have been able to see over the years the 2 swan species coexist peacefully. After sunrise the geese lift off and go to feed in the fields. At dusk they return to these little open water areas. This is the opposite of their classic pattern of movement during the hunting season, especially if there is much of a moon. A beautiful sunset as I sit in my "bay chair" at Lucy Point listening to the tumult of the clangor and clamor of many, many hundreds of waterfowl only a couple of hundred yards away. The geese are still streaming low overhead a half hour after the sun goes down, setting just to the right of the Patuxent River towers across from Sandgates, easily visible even though the towers are about 25 miles in the distance. It is so clear I can easily see land on the western shore looking past Cook's Point, which would be in the area of Calvert Beach and Long Beach, over 21 miles distant. One of the American crows was feeding on a dead Tundra Swan way out on the ice. As the tide rose during the course of the day small areas on the lee side of the dock pilings opened up and the water swirled and spouted up through them vigorously as if some sort of geothermal phenomenon was coming to life. Barnacles from the pilings had been ground off by the ice and lay in fragments on top of it. Our eagle nest, active 2000-2002 (2 young fledged each year in 2001 and 2002) but inactive last year, has come crashing down. You'd never know there had been one there. Nice while it lasted. One Red-winged Blackbird was singing, and, of course the redoubtable Carolina Wrens were also. Arrive back in Philadelphia just in time to see the exciting last quarter of Super Bowl XXXVIII. 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================