Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:45:05 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: lower Eastern Shore, Razorbills MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland, February 22-23. 2004. 29 waterfowl species in 2 days (missed Wood and Harlequin ducks, Lesser Scaup, and Blue-winged Teal, plus any rare, off-the-wall geese). Sunday, Feb. 22. Fair, to 50 degrees F., winds NW 15-25 m.p.h. 1. Route 301 mile 90.5. 450 Snow Geese in a field and a roadkill Red Fox. 2. Route 309 pond at noon (1 mile east of the T-junction of Rts. 213 & 309). 85 Ring-necked and 49 American Black ducks, 2 Gadwall, 3 Mallards, 5 American Wigeon, 1 female Canvasback, 2 Northern Pintails, 30 Canada Geese. 3. "Rigby's Folly", Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, near Bellevue. 1:30 - 2:30 P.M. 710 Canvasbacks in one tight group on Irish Creek, 90 Lesser Scaup, 20 Red-breasted Mergansers, 25 Common Goldeneyes, 15 Buffleheads, 3 Horned Grebes, 1 Bald Eagle and 11 Mute Swans. The grebe and merganser are new year birds for here, a little influx of fish-eaters. 4. Tar Creek (near Bellevue): 210 Lesser Scaup. 2:35 P.M. 5 through 8 are in Dorchester County. 5. Blackwater N.W.R. An apparent hybrid/intergrade/whatever Eurasian X American Green-winged Teal in the little field pond near Egypt Road by the maintenance shed. Had both the horizontal white stripe along the folded wing and the vertical one just aft of the breast area. Three male Redheads and 35 Ring-necked Ducks in Pool 1. 200 Tundra Swans along Wildlife Drive. 310 Common Mergansers in the Blackwater River in one loose assemblage; that's almost 2X as many as seen on the entire Christmas count here but a buildup after the cold January weather isn't surprising. Here and elsewhere these 2 days it's apparent there has been a nice influx of Great Blue Herons, shovelers, Gadwall, pintails, and Green-winged Teal. 6. Bucktown. A Gray Fox, a mammal I hardly ever see anywhere. 7. Bestpitch Ferry Bridge (Transquaking River). 3 harriers and 3 Bald Eagles. 8. Elliott Island Road, 5 - 6:30 P.M. A Short-eared Owl, silhouetted against the western sky over the marsh at 6:15 P.M. when I also saw 6 Black-crowned Night Herons and a late, high-flying Bald Eagle. Great Horned Owl calling near Savanna Lake. A Cooper's Hawk at Cokeland. 1 Sika Elk. Monday, Feb. 23. Ocean City, MD, area, Worcester County, 7:30 A.M. - 5 P.M. Clear, 30-42 degrees F., winds NE 10-20-10 shifting late to S or SW @ 5 m.p.h. A very high, light haze gradually overspreading the area in the late afternoon with sun dogs appearing c. 4:15 P.M. but basically still nearly clear. Tide rising to very high, then falling to very low. 23 waterfowl species today. 45 mi. by car, 2 on foot. 9. Inlet area, 7:30 - 11 A.M. then again 3:30 - 5 P.M. RAZORBILLS. Once in the morning there were 6 in sight in my scope field simultaneously, only 100 or so yards away, plus a 7th bird nearby. All the several dozen good lucks I had of these alcids indicated they were adult birds, which have the whitish area on the cheeks behind the eyes. They were actively diving (and catching little fishes) with an extended period of preening and grooming in the morning. Interesting that the day before over 8,000 were seen from Cape Point at Cape Hatteras (which was Feb. 15, Sun.) "only" a few hundred were seen on the pelagic trip (of Sat., Feb. 14). Six or 7 years ago, I think, c. 1,000 Razorbills were estimated from shore near Cape Hatteras, north of there at, I believe it was Rodanthe. Several dozen birders were at O.C. during the course of the day. The Razorbills mostly frequented the rips area out from the end of the south jetty. A quick dip and snap of the wings and they're below the surface with unbelievable speed. EIDERS. Early in the morning when the light was excellent I counted 27 eiders in view at one time. They were actively preening so it was hard to see the bill and head shape well. At least 2 of these were Kings (nearly fully adult males). All the rest I got to see well enough were Commons. However, a few days ago Gail MacKiernan was able to see that there were at least 4 Kings. Except for one nearly full adult Common in the afternoon the eiders were always, alas, on the south side of the south jetty. For much of the day you wouldn't have known there was an eider anywhere in the world. Also at the inlet: 30 Red-throated and 3 Common loons, 2 Horned and 1 Red-necked Grebe, 1 Double-crested and 3 Great Cormorants, 30 Brant, 35 pintails, 1 Lesser Scaup, 5 Long-tailed Ducks, 25 Black, 110 Surf and 3 White-winged scoters, 40 Red-breasted Mergansers, 45 Ruddy Turnstones, 22 Sanderlings, 40 Purple Sandpipers, 16 Bonaparte's Gulls, and 1 Ipswich Sparrow (on the beach right at the base of the North jetty). Some of these waterfowl totals include birds heading north well offshore. A little lost was a Muskrat ambling along the sandy strip between the parking lot and the inlet, oblivious to the rest of us. There was a small flight of pintails and mergansers heading north in the early morning, and Surf Scoters in the late afternoon. No gannets or off-the-wall alcid species. At low tide it's a treat to look down on the turnstones (keekeedackles) and purps at point blank range as they forage below among the big clusters of little, black mussels growing on the rocks. 10. Fourth Street, Skimmer Island, and Hooper's Crab House, 11:30 - 12:30. Not much other than gulls: 1 Great Cormorant on marker 3, 4 American Oystercatchers (doing one of their synchronized flights together, calling like crazy), 12 Dunlin, 20 Red-breasted Mergansers and 4 Black-bellied Plovers plus a possibly migrating Sharp-shinned Hawk. Skimmer Island has been diminished quite a bit since last summer. Let's hope it still supports the breeding herons, Royal and Common terns, and skimmers that it did then. At Fourth Street it was nice to see 15 Brant feeding on the grass at the little baseball field. To get there first they have to fly over a 10 foot-high hurricane fence then land on the grass in an area otherwise surrounded by blocks and blocks of houses. The muffled trumpeting of Brant is one of my favorite bird sounds. 11. West Ocean City Pond (Golf Course Road). 12:45 P.M. Teeming with fowl. 2 Black-crowned Night Herons, 1 adult Lesser Black-backed Gull (grooming itself while sitting on the water), 720 Canvasbacks, 22 Lesser Scaup, 6 Gadwalls, 12 American Wigeon, 85 Mallards, 2 Hooded Mergansers, 1 Ruddy Duck, 28 shovelers, and 4 Ring-necked Ducks. 12. Eagles Nest Road. 1:15 P.M. Lovely male Eurasian Wigeon in the pond across from the Humane Society. The pond is full of ducks used to golfers walking around the pond edges. The ducks can be seen easily from the road shoulder so please stay off of the golf course. Also: 115 American Wigeon (probably a low estimate), 6 Gadwalls, 6 shovelers, 2 Mallards, 1 Great Blue Heron, 2 black ducks, and 2 Green-winged Teal. On the tidal flats at the end of the road: 115 Black-bellied Plovers, 2 turnstones, 2 oystercatchers, 660 Dunlin, 6 Buffleheads, and a Snow Goose. If I'd scoped more diligently I guess I would have seen the Piping Plover the Brodericks saw here today (and yesterday as well). 13. Assateague National Seashore. Not too many birds but 11 Sika Elk and 3 White-tailed Deer. The male Boat-tailed Grackle on the beach was the only one I saw these 2 days. 14. GOLDEN EAGLES. Greg Inskip of Wilmington reports there are at least 5 Golden Eagles this winter in southern Dorchester County: 2 adults (seen together twice), 2 distinctively-marked 1st-year birds, and a sub-adult. 15. 159.6 miles to home with the cusp of the Moon, and Venus very close and just to its right, as if the standard for some exotic Islamic republic flag had been raised into the sky, these slowly setting off my port side. Last night at the Shell station in Vienna Venus was so bright I couldn't believe it wasn't Jupiter until I got the 32X Leica scope on her. Then as today the Moon cusp is the bottom of the Moon, like a cradle, but with Venus rather high above it. But the romance of the Arab lands is dead. The exploration and cultivation of that part of the world seems as remote and unlikely as that of a crescent and a planet in the night sky. Are the Islamic peoples better off now than they were a hundred years ago? What sort of stewardship do their great natural areas enjoy? Are there astounding adventurers today, the counterparts of Charles Doughty, T. E. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell, Sir Richard Burton, Col. Richard Meinertzhagen, or Sir Wilfrid Thesiger? People that appreciate and bring to the West a knowledge and understanding of their indigenous peoples? I hope so but I can't imagine who they are. Who in the present world has had experiences and sensibilities that can form the basis of passages such as this one by Meinertzhagen, and then write them?: "The second episode occurred on Mount Sinai where I spent the night alone in the small chapel on my fiftieth birthday. It had snowed all night, I had slept on the altar, but spent most of the night walking about to keep warm. I felt lonely and detached from the world, longing for the break of day. At last it came, first a faint blush of grey light in the east, rapidly flooding with gold. As I paced up and down in the snow the mist-soft horizon slowly revealed itself, and I felt I was living in a wilderness of spirits, lost and abandoned in the ghost-robe of dawn which enshrouded the earth. And when the sun rose over the deserts of Arabia the mist began to clear, revealing a crystal-clear ruby blaze over the eastern skies, and I looked down on one of the most beautiful sights I have ever witnessed; to the east I could see the Gulf of Aqaba and on the west I could see parts of the Gulf of Suez. On this holy mountain I felt very near to God, I turned to look at the chapel. On the small wooden cross sat a Lammergeier, all hunched up in the cold but gloriously golden in the sunlight; and as I watched him, but a few yards off, his great wings spread out and he sailed forth into the gorges of those barren mountains searching for his breakfast, as his kind have done since the days of Moses." 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================