"Rigby's Folly", Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, near
Bellevue.  Sunday, December 5, 2004.  7:30 A.M. - 4:15 P.M.  44 species. 
Clear, winds SW 5 - 10 - calm, temps. 46-58 degrees F., tides high becoming
low, visibility excellent.  Pound net stakes 7 miles distant clearly
visible.  If pelicans were sitting on them or flying over them they would
have been identifiable.  Lots of standing water.  Some areas that are
shaded and with a northern exposure have some leftover thin ice.  

8 Common Loons.  93 Mute Swans.  815 Buffleheads (at least).  160 Surf
Scoters.  16 Red-breasted Mergansers (1 female accompanied by 2 other
female-plumaged birds that are noticeably smaller than she is; if they are
young birds I would have assumed that when they become able to fly they are
about the same size as the adults; curious; they seemed 1/5 or 1/6
smaller).  80 Long-tailed Ducks.  2 adult and 2 immature Bald Eagles
(possibly 1 or 2 more).  1 Forster's Tern.  1 screech-owl.  1 Ruby-crowned
Kinglet.  40 Yellow-rumped Warblers (the relative scarcity of these birds
some have notcied on the Eastern Shore of Virginia is not apparent to me
here.  In fact, they seem  commoner than usual at Rigby).  1 adult male
Eastern Towhee (feeding on Smilax berries).  3 Savannah Sparrows.    

As the sun warms the yard there is a nice guild of myrtles, robins,
bluebirds, a Red-bellied Woodpecker, juncos, and sparrows feeding around
the house and spritzing in the standing water.  Many of the myrtles are
feeding on insects around the roofs of the house and the garage.

Surprising misses:  Horned Grebe, Common Goldeneye, Red-tailed Hawk. 
Not-so-surprising misses:  Double-crested Cormorant, Northern Gannet,
Laughing Gull.  I have yet to see/hear Red-breasted Nuthatch, Pine Siskin
or Purple Finch here this fall even though they have been fairly common in
some other localities.  

Mammals:  3 Gray Squirrels.  A Red Fox in F2 - a large, handsome, very
furry, and highly-colored animal that watched me intently as it stood
stock-still in the middle of the field.  Deer, 16: 13 does and 3 bucks. 
Two 4-point bucks were jousting gently with their antlers, one of them a
piebald individual that was mostly white, especially frontally, on the
chest, sides and legs.  As they were tangling with each other a huge
8-point buck cantered past them, apparently unimpressed.  The bucks and 7
of the does were at Holland Point and were within 75 feet of Mrs. Springs'
house right in her yard, easily and well-seen by scope (32X,
straight-through Leica Televid, the best scope I've ever owned) from my
Choptank River mouth vantage point at Lucy Point on our shoreline.

1 Orange Sulphur and some Mosquito Hawks, lots of little crickets.  The
purpose of my visit today was to scan the skies and fields and try to add
Cave Swallow to the yard list.  No such luck with that.  In other years
when they were considered "just" a subspecies it seemed I saw Cackling
Geese with good regularity.  I have yet to see one this fall, but not from
lack of trying.

This fall there seem to have been an above average number of really high
tides both here, in Dorchester County, and on the Eastern Shore of Virginia
in places I have been to.

Only about a dozen boats in sight, most of these apparently fishing miles
offshore at the mouth of the Choptank but also, ugh, 2 jet skis.  I spent 2
hours at Lucy Point mostly scoping the glassy calm waters but also dozing
off several times in the warm sun.  Comfortable in a T-shirt.
  
Best to all.-Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA
19119-1225.  215-248-4120.  Please, any off-list replies to: 



Farewell beloved acres;
I leave you in the hands
Of one whose earliest enterprise was lands:
Your Maker's.

Yard, hutch, and house, farewell.
It is for you to tell
How you withstood the great white wolf,
  whose fell
Is softer than a lambkin's, but whose breath
Is death.
Farewell, hoof, claw, and wing,
Finned, furred, and feathered thing, Till Spring-
-Louis Untermeyer, "Last words before winter"