A 3-day road trip with Jared Sparks:
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2005.
Somewhere in southern Delaware, Route 113, a Red-tailed Hawk roadkill,
unbanded, adult. Too bad.
WEST OCEAN CITY POND, MD. Pretty quiet. Often has a big Canvasback
assemblage but we only saw 4! Also present: 3 ad. Black-crowned Night
Herons, 12 black ducks, 9 shovelers, 12 Gadwall, 8 Lesser Scaup, 1 female
Bufflehead, and 18 Ruddy Ducks.
OCEAN CITY INLET, MD. Rather quiet here also: 2 Red-throated & 1 Common
loon, 10 gannets, 1 imm. Great Cormorant, 175 Brant (many juveniles), 1
imm. male Common Eider, 1 female Black and 3 female Surf scoters, 1 female
Long-tailed Duck, 2 Buffleheads, 8 Red-breasted Mergansers, 8 Turkey
Vultures, 6 Bald Eagles (!), 4 unbanded oystercatchers, 30 turnstones, 25
Sanderlings, 35 Purple Sandpipers, 1 2nd-year Laughing Gull (right on the
parking lot, 32X at c. 75 feet), 2 Bonaparte's Gulls, and 0 Forster's
Terns. A highlight: excellent views of 2 Peregrine Falcons. One spent
much of the time on the water tower. The other, thrilling to see, engaged,
quite close to us, in several unsuccessful chases of shorebirds.
CHINCOTEAGUE N.W.R., VA. Spent the last hour of daylight here, almost
entirely on the beach road overlooking Tom's Cove and Swan Cove. 6 Common
Loons, 4 Horned Grebes, 4 Double-crested Cormorants, 25 Great Blue Herons,
10 Great Egrets, 2,000 Snow & 15 Blue geese, 425 Brant, 10 Buffleheads, 4
Hooded & 15 Red-breasted Mergansers, 1 imm. Bald Eagle, 1 harrier, 12
oystercatchers, 40 Dunlin, and 3 Great Horned Owls calling, almost
simultaneously, at dusk.
SOLSTICE TIME. The past few years I've ended up at Chicnoteague close to
solstice time, watching the sun set to the southwest and the gathering dusk
from the beach road at Tom's Cove. Always reminds me of Emily Dickinson's
'There's a certain slant of light winter afternoons' whose last stanza is:
"When it comes the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath.
When it goes 'tis like the distance
On the look of death."
SAT., DEC. 17. WACHAPREAGUE, VA, Christmas Bird Count (Cedar Island party,
consisting of Ruth Boettcher, Jack ["Outdoor Jack"] Carroll, Michael Male,
Jared Sparks and myself. Ruth & Mike took us out to the "storm cut"
through Cedar Island and left us off on the island's 4.5 mile-long north
segment, to be picked up at 3:30 P.M. on the island's north end. They then
explored much of the marsh and bays between Cedar I. and the 6-mile-distant
mainland.
Since I have yet to hand in our party totals to compiler Irv Ailes I do so
herewith. Our complete list follows. Thanks for waiting, Irv. A very few
of these were seen on the mainland.
Red-throated Loon 35. Common Loon 33. Horned Grebe 23. Northern Gannet
10. Double-crested Cormorant 39. American Bittern 1. Great Blue Heron
23. Great Egret 3. Black-crowned Night Heron 1. Snow Goose (white)
4,500. Blue Goose 235. Brant 644. Canada Goose 25. American Black Duck
140. Mallard 3. Northern Pintail 4. Long-tailed Duck 25. Black Scoter
5. Surf Scoter 135. White-winged Scoter 4. unidentified scoters 85.
Common Goldeneye 4. Bufflehead 282. Hooded Merganser 16. Red-breasted
Merganser 80. Ruddy Duck 24.
Turkey Vulture 8. Bald Eagle 8 (best ever for this party). Northern
Harrier 22. Red-tailed Hawk 1. Peregrine Falcon 2. Clapper Rail 1.
Black-bellied Plover 210. Semipalmated Plover 1. American Oystercatcher
247 (good count for this party). Greater Yellowlegs 49. Lesser Yellowlegs
1. Willet 324 (a really gonzo count). Marbled Godwit 24. Ruddy Turnstone
59. Red Knot 10. Sanderling 62. Western Sandpiper 240. Least Sandpiper
11 (seen in 3 places: 1, 3 & 7). Dunlin 4,884. Short-billed Dowitcher 4.
Bonaparte's Gull 6. Ring-billed Gull 50. Herring Gull 528. Great
Black-backed Gull 19. Forster's Tern 96.
Belted Kingfisher 1. American Crow 6. Fish Crow 6. Golden-crowned
Kinglet 2. American Robin 20. Northern Mockingbird 1. European Starling
. Savannah Sparrow 6. Savannah (Ipswich) Sparrow 18. Saltmarsh
Sharp-tailed Sparrow 6. sharp-tailed sparrow (sp.) 4. Seaside Sparrow 1.
Red-winged Blackbird 50. Eastern Meadowlark 1. Common Grackle 1.
Boat-tailed Grackle 3.
TOTAL: 62 species.
WEATHER. Sky: Mostly overcast, clearing partially from the north, then
the sky had a change of mind and the clearing headed back north. Wind: N
15-10-5-calm. Temperature in degrees F.: Mid-30s to high 40s. Tide:
Above normal falling to a bit below normal by late afternoon.
Precipitation: 0. General: No ice or snow. Ground condition: Wet, much
standing water. Visibility: Excellent.
HOURS & MILES. This was essentially a Christmas count within a Christmas
count with 3 sub-parties working independently most of the day. The Cedar
Island 3 sub-parties were: Jared on the island; Jack & I on the island
well-separated from Jared; Ruth & Michael in the boats. Party hours: 16
on foot, 7 by boat, 0.5 by car; Party miles: 12 on foot, 22 by boat, 10
by car. 7 A.M. - 5 P.M.
AMERICAN BITTERNS look very similar to imm. Black-crowned Night Herons but
their flight is much more mannered and mechanical, stiffer, whereas BCNHs
have easy, slow, rather continuous wingbeats, but the bittern's wingbeats
are somewhat jerky, then they will (at least it seems so to my eyes) "hold"
for a fraction of a second before downstroking again. In addition to this
diagnostic flight (not mentioned in some of the field guides), with our
bird the dark secondaries and primaries were also easy to see. We jumped
it at close range. Over the years I've found that if one sees AMBIs on
barrier islands they seem to favor the upper saltmarsh adjacent to where
the sandy or scrubby areas begin in back of the dunes.
Ruth Boettcher was able to read the bands on 5 of the OYSTERCATCHERS she
and others have banded on the Eastern Shore, one of the projects she is
involved with.
Great looks at IPSWICH SPARROWS today. These seemed especially plump,
tame, and pale. There were great windrows of Spartina alterniflora seeds
washed in on the lower dune and upper marsh sides of the bayside of the
dunes. The Ipswich and some of the other sparrows were feeding on these
seeds, also favored by black ducks.
My favorite birds today were a group of 3 LEAST SANDPIPERS. They were at a
small pool that was lined with exposed mud and ringed all around by high
and dense Spartina alterniflora. Tame and unconcerned, they allowed Jack
and I to watch them for several minutes. They were belly-deep in the salt
water, bathing, splashing the water all over themselves. Then they'd wade
out onto the exposed mud, permitting good looks at their dull
greenish-yellow legs. Jack and I then shambled on up the island without
having disturbed them. The other Least Jack and I saw today was farther
away in company with a Western Sandpiper and several Dunlin.
On this C.B.C. an annual tradition for me is to eat a little SALICORNIA
(Glasswort). This small, succulent plant is very salty and quite pithy,
though not as pithy as some of the celery I also ate this weekend. Really
cold weather makes Salicornia brownish or tan, withered and dry, but quite
a bit of it was still dull reddish and tubular today. It's rather
brilliant red earlier in the fall. A fine book is "The Smithsonian Guide
to Seaside Plants of the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts" by Wilbur H. & Marion B.
Duncan (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987, 409pp., $34.95), which has 588
color photographs. Shot of Salicornia on p. 77, text p. 237-238.
The Cedar Island beach today was very flat and wide with a nice low tide,
full of the bland, depauperate (that is to say, short on color and variety)
COQUILLAGE so representative of the Middle Atlantic seashore: surf clams,
scallops, oysters, cockles, mussels, whelks (called conchs here), razor
clams, et al. Seaside oysters on the Virginia Eastern Shore are very pale,
flat, and elongate in contrast to those of the central Chesapeake Bay,
which tend to be thicker, shorter, and much darker. At Cedar Island one
often finds attractive clusters of empty oystershell halves that are very
decorative and sculpture-like. I collected 2 of these today with clusters
of 5 & 7 oysters respectively. These clusters do not seem to occur nearly
as frequently in the central Chesapeake. Today I also found an oyster that
was 8.5 inches in length.
There are several large patches of Sea Lavender on north CEDAR ISLAND, one
nearly an acre in extent. Unfortunately the extensive Red Cedar forests
for which the island is named are almost entirely gone now. But in one
pathetic remnant patch, mostly dead trees, Jack found the 2 Golden-crowned
Kinglets. There are still some nice cedar hammocks back from the sea in
the salt marsh west of northern Cedar Island and 7 or more miles to the
south at Revel's Island, which is west of the south end of Parramore
Island. Most of the very extensive Loblolly Pine forest on Parramore,
several hundred acres, is dead due to a couple of fairly recent fires and
perhaps also to salt water intrusion from Hurricane Isabel or other storms.
Sic transit gloria mundi. I am glad I was able to see some of these
attractive features when I made my first trips to these places in the late
1970s.
SUN., DEC. 18, (off to a slow start) in Virginia. LOCUSTVILLE (S. of
Accomac, in Accomack County), VA:
At George & Barbara Reiger's ("Heron Hope"). Slept in after yesterday's
exertions, then a leisurely breakfast with much stimulating conversation.
Sitting with George on their first floor porch we saw perhaps 7,000 Snow
Geese passing in the distance, headed north. George estimates that c. 3%
of them are Blue Geese. Also: an ad. Bald Eagle, 2 Sharp-shinned Hawks, a
flock of 7 Dunlin with 9 Greater Yellowlegs, 30 Green-winged Teal, 12 Surf
Scoters, 8 Hooded Mergansers, 24 or so black ducks, 175 Canada Geese, and
40 Boat-tailed Grackles. Their house looks out over the rich estuary where
Finney, Rattrap & Nickawampus creeks empty into Burtons and Bradford bays
and the extensive saltmarsh. Visible in the distance over 7 miles to the
south is Parramore Island (Italian Hill, a segment of Parramore with dense
Red Cedar and Loblolly Pine forest), a lovely prospect.
At Michael Male & Judy Fieth's. 10:30 A.M. until noon. In their yard 2
Fox Sparrows. A sapsucker mewing from one of their hardwoods. A Cooper's
Hawk soaring overhead. A Brown Thrasher. They have an extensive thicket
of large bamboo, much of it 2 inches in diameter and 15 or so feet high.
Michael cut for me a 13-foot poke stick (push pole, if you will). I look
forward to using it in shoal areas with my boat next year. This should be
far superior to the much thinner metal pole I've been using until now.
Willis Wharf. Always seem to get here at the wrong (tide) time. Too high
so we ate lunch in Exmore and returned after the tide had gone out - too
far - but we did see 23 Willets, 7 Marbled Godwits, 6 oystercatchers, 3
Short-billed Dowithers, 1 Dunlin (often scarce here), and a very close,
hunting Sharp-shinned Hawk plus a few Buffleheads, a Red-breasted
Merganser, and a Common Loon. On the way down here we passed a group of
115 Mourning Doves on the wires near Quinby. The resident turnstone flock,
usually conspicuous and dependable, 40-70 birds, was not so today.
Headin' home. At 2:30 an ad. Bald Eagle flying west over Rt. 13 on the
south side of Onley. At 2:38 another one flying west over 13 north of
Onley. Best sign of the trip said: "The best Christmas present was wrapped
in a manager." I know what you mean but ... who is minding the manger?
Merry what have you and happy something or other.
Best to all.-Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA
19119-1225. 215-248-4120. Please, any off-list replies to:
harryarmistead at hotmail dot com (never, please, to 74077.3176 ....) |