"Rigby's Folly", Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, near
Bellevue.  May 28-30, 2005.  Pretty weather.  Light winds (except for
Saturday late).  Temps in the 70s.  Was in and out of the water a lot,
tending the boat or otherwise.  Always delightful to go wading.  A
Chuck-will's-widow or 2 calling every evening.  Surprised not to see a
lingering loon or 2 during this period.  One time we saw 7 as late as June
5, in 1982.  

May 28, 2005, Saturday.  125 (exactly) Mute Swans  There is a 5-inch rusty
nail in my right rear car tire after 120 miles of trailering from
yesterday's boat trip.  Cocktails with Michael & Nancy Lytell, during which
Johns Hopkins goes on to the NCAA lacrosse championship finals.  

May 29, Sunday.  Liz sees a flock of 8 Snowy Egrets.  1 Killdeer.  38
Diamondback Terrapin.  A 5-foot Black Rat Snake in the grass at the head of
the dock.  Male Indigo Bunting singing in the yard.  Pair of Blue Grosbeaks
on the driveway.   

17.7 mile boat trip to Buoy 2 Irish Creek, Choptank River Light, Oxford,
Buoy 1 Irish Creek, and then home, 1:30-4:15 P.M.  Not much.  5 Laughing
Gulls, 2 Common Tern, 2 Herring Gulls, 0 Surf Scoters.  

OFF TOPIC.  (!)  A Rigby first:  Michael Solomonov proposes to our
daughter, Mary, on our dock, and she accepts.  

May 30, Memorial Day.  A flock of 25 Whimbrel heading due north in rapid
flight.  It's always thrilling to see these big, impressive, duck-sized
shorebirds making their great run for the Arctic tundra.  I hope they're
full of Eastern Shore of Virginia fiddler crabs and other scrumptious
invertebrates.  Memorial Day Weekend is always Whimbrel Watch Weekend for
me.  They have this narrow window when they fly over our region.  This is
the 6th time they've been seen at Rigby in late May, all between the dates
of May 24 and May 30, including 595 seen by Liz and me on May 25, 1990.  On
the 76 Dorchester County May Bird Counts, from 1966 to this year, all
between the dates of May 1 and May 14, Whimbrel have never been seen.  

Liz and I took a nice, slow 5.3 mile boat trip around the shores of Irish
Creek at high tide.  6 Osprey nests on pilings erected just for them.  1
active Purple Martin colony on a dock nesting box.  1 Common Tern.  

61 Diamondback Terrapin in sight at one time at the head of the cove. 
There is a large area of submerged aquatic vegetation there, the biggest
I've seen since the 1960s, and another bed of it along the rest of our
shoreline.  I'm having to clear the prop of grass now every time I go out. 
Haven't had to do that in ages.  In spite of a big resident flock of Mute
Swans the grass is doing very well this year.  The terrapin seem to love
the SAV beds.  Our record count is 81 on May 2, 2003, that Jared Sparks and
I saw.  Also, 2 water snakes today.  2 adult Red-tailed Hawks.  Loads of
Fowler's Toads hopping around under our boxwood walkway.  

Symptoms of the late spring.  Still plenty of blossoms on the Black Locusts
as we go into June.  The berries on the Red Mulberries are not yet fully
developed.  Usually they're all over the ground at this time of year, where
they attract grackles, mockers, and deer.  I'm rying to remember if it's
gone over 80 yet in the month of May.

Headin' home.  A Wild Turkey in a field next to Goose Creek Road near Royal
Oak.  A roadkill Red Fox kit in the ditch near Loves Folly Road.  A Least
Tern at the McDonald's catchment pond at Easton.  The interchanges of
Routes 299 and 1 between Middletown and Odessa, Delaware, are an excellent
place to see Woodchucks, if one is so inclined, sometimes 6 or 7
simultaneously., including the odd family group.

OFF TOPIC, again.  Daughter Anne graduates from Temple University Law
School, Thursday, May 19, is notified she won a fellowship on Fri., May 27.
 Over the weekend son, George, gets some great photographs of a British
Storm Petrel at sea off the Outer Banks.  This has been one gonzo week!    

Best to all.-Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA
19119-1225.  215-248-4120.  Please, any off-list replies to: