Saturday, July 30, 2005.  Blackwater N.W.R.  6:30 A.M.-3:15 P.M.  overcast
eventually becoming semi-fair.  Rain during the night off and on,
torrential at 5 A.M.  76-83 degrees F.  winds NE5.  Paul Sykes & Harry
Armistead.

1 imm. Little Blue Heron.  15 Bald Eagles.  1 Peregrine Falcon atop the
tall tower in Cambridge feeding on something; thanks to Hal Wierenga for
drawing my attention to this favored perch earlier this summer.  3 Solitary
Sandpipers.  41 Caspian Terns (most of them resting on the mud tumps at
Sewards).  2 Least Terns.  3 Yellow-billed Cuckoos.  6 hummingbirds.  1
imm. & 1 ad. Red-headed Woodpecker.  1 Acadian Flycatcher.  300 Tree
Swallows.  20 Bank Swallows.  4 Brown-headed Nuthatches.  1 Blue-gray
Gnatcatcher (probably an early migrant).  3 Cedar Waxwings.  1
Black-and-white Warbler.  1 Worm-eating Warbler.  2 Ovenbirds (an ad.
feeding a youngster).  2 Summer Tanagers.  1,000 Common Grackles mas o
menos.  

The purpose of the trip was to search for Pileated Woodpecker (PIWO)
woodworkings.  Paul is doing work comparing these with probable
Ivory-billed Woodpecker (IBWO) workings in Arkansas by measuring different
woodworking features, known variously as bark scaling, pits, and furrow
excavation.  Yesterday he made 25 measurements on the western shore below
Washington, D.C.  Today we found workings that led to 39 measurements. 
Somewhat like the IBWO search we found lots of good sign but did not see or
hear a PIWO.  Paul is also visiting major museums - measuring bills, having
casts of some bills made, and photographing specimens as part of his work
with the U. S. Geological Survey.    

The birding world seems to have become divided into the IBWO believers and
the skeptics/non-believers.  Too bad.  I am a big believer.

Today we also missed Black Vulture, Killdeer, the recently reported avocet,
flicker, towhee, and Orchard Oriole.  No Fox Squirrels either.  The Osprey
tree nest near the boathouse blew down this week according to Tom MIller.  


Carpe diem.  Pool 1 has been let down for shorebirds, and there were a few
there:  Least Sandpipers, Semipalmated Plovers, and the solitaries.  This
pool is full of many hundreds of rather large dead carp now with some
attendant Great Blue Herons, Snowy & Great egrets.

Love is in the air.  Ditch, actually.  We saw 2 large Snapping Turtles
apparently mating in a ditch with deep water.  Their shells (carapace) were
about 15" long.  They would occasionally roll over, perhaps so the
submerged partner could get some air.  It was quite slow and gentle. 
Blackwater's answer to Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr at night in the
beach scene of "From here to eternity?" 

Also:  1 Water Snake.  1 Diamondback Terrapin (at Sewards).  3 Monarchs.  1
Red Fox.  7 Eastern Cottontails.  2 Gray Squirrels.  

Many thanks to Tom Miller of Blackwater for volunteering us access to
Kentuck Swamp, Area D, where we made some measurements.  There is also an
impressive Loblolly Pine there with diameter breast high (DBH) of 33.2
inches.  The raised area at the base of the tree is about 2' high.  Paul
has a handy measuring tape (Stevens Wyteface, Keuffel & Esser Co., K-E). 
When spread around the tree's circumference at chest heighth it gives a
reading of a tree's very approximate diameter.         

We drove down to Golden Hill, observing the appropriate solemnities, so I
could show Paul the site where Red-cockaded Woodpeckers were found in the
1930s and 1950s. 

"Rigby's Folly", Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, near
Bellevue.  Also on Saturday, some of these seen only by Joan Sykes and Liz
Armistead.  Common Loon 1.  Black Vulture 1.  Spotted Sandpiper 3.  Great
Horned Owl 1.  Jimmy Olszewski mowed the Warbler Trail and the Olszewski
Trails, the first time this year they have been cut.  John Swaine has
recently again planted our fields this year with no-till soy beans.  Nice
chorus of Green Tree Frogs Fri. and Sat. evenings sounding off at
Davidson's Pond.  Lots of small Fowler's Toads here and at Blackwater. 
Plenty of Green Frogs calling in the Blackwater refuge area, a plunkin'
banjo jamboree, in fact.   

A juv. Osprey spent most of the day sitting on a piling on our dock.  Joan
found it originally sitting on the rocks in the intertidal zone.  Our
worries vanished when we later saw it sitting on the nesting platform 200
yards to the east, where its parents fed it.  Nice for us to finally be
able to go out on the dock, too. 

Rigby, Sunday, July 31.  overcast becoming fair.  Humidity increasing. 
72-83 degrees.  winds NE - E variously 5 m.p.h.  The 4 of us saw:  2 Blue
Grosbeaks (the male carrying nesting material).  1 Red-tailed Hawk.  1 imm.
Bald Eagle.  1 White-eyed Vireo.  1 Pileated Woodpecker.  4 flickers.  8
cormorants.  Also:  12 Diamondback Terrapin.  2 small fawns.  Numerous
Green Frogs and some Southern Leopard Frogs.    

Butterflies:  4 Common Wood Nymphs.  1 Tiger Swallowtail.  4 Red Admirals. 
4 Monarchs.  1 Red-spotted Purple.  Lots of little "X-wing" skippers I
don't know how to ID.  Lots of Common Whitetails (a dragonfly) along the
driveway.

I rode out with Paul & Joan on their way to New York and the American
Museum of Natural History and asked them to stop to measure the DBH on 2
trees.  A big oak next to the driveway has a DBH of 52.65 inches.  The
Loblolly Pine that held an eagle nest for several years, not an especially
huge one, taped in at 22.2 inches diameter.

Recently seen on the road.  Bumper stickers:  This is not an abandoned car.
 Mission (nothing) accomplished.  Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people
than my gun.  God bless the entire world, no exceptions.  A fresh
Gore/Lieberman sticker on a pickup truck.  ...  Take your pick.

A Ford 150 pickup truck passed us with 23 Support Our Troops, Good Bless
America-type ribbons.  A panel truck with "Dog Training" on the side and
below it "Sit Happens."  Recently on Route 495 a black motorcycle gang went
jiveblastin' past us at 75 m.p.h., their leader doing an impressive
"wheelie": his front tire 2 feet above the pavement for a couple of hundred
yards, speeding along precariously in this a manner.

On the way down Dvorak's 'New World Symphony' on 89.5.  On the way up 'Juke
Box Sunday' on 107.1 "The Duck" with songs such as 'Charlie Brown' (the
Coasters) and 'Dominique' (the Singing Nun) and many others the oldies
stations in Philadelphia never play.  Such things make the long drive down
and back more interesting.

"When I turn me wagon in, me boys,
And I've had me chips at last.
Plant me by the road where I can hear the wagons pass.
Bury me by Scotch Corner on the road outside Carlysle
And I'll lie and hear the heavy stuff go tearin' up the miles." 

- Ewan MacColl truck driving song from the 1960s.     

Best to all.-Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA
19119-1225.  215-248-4120.