DORCHESTER COUNTY, MD, MAY BIRD COUNT LXXVII (77th), Saturday, May 6, 2006.
 Our grateful thanks to Glenn Carowan for granting access to restricted
areas of Blackwater refuge and to Neil & Kate Birchmeier for letting us
scope the northern Hooper's Island-Tar Bay sand bars from their lovely
dock.

Several other parties were afield in Dorchester today.  As soon as I hear
from them I will post a countywide summary.

EFFORT & WEATHER.  11:30 P.M., Friday through 8:30 P.M., Saturday (21
hours).  Roger & Joshua Stone and myself.   The night was warm and calm but
since it was overcast this cast something of a pall on bird vocalizations
and there were no migrants overhead.  Daytime began overcast but became
increasingly sunny (and, unfortunately, windy) ending with clear skies and
a brisk 15-20 NW wind.  The wind put the kabosh on finding any lingering
diving birds and made it very hard to hear birds in the woods. 
Temperature:  68 - 75 - 62.  A warm day.  192 miles by car, 1 or 2 by foot.
 Tide: high becoming low.  

THE BIRDS:

4 Brown Pelicans (Hooper's Island; last year 150 or so pairs bred nearby on
Holland Island; let's hope they return).  1 Tricolored Heron. & 1 Glossy
Ibis (both at Elliott Island).  3 Mute Swans (used to find 150 or more!!). 
3 American Wigeon.  3 shovelers.  7 female-plumaged Red-breasted Mergansers
(Hooper's).  45 Bald Eagles.  4 harriers.  1 Sharp-shinned Hawk (1st one in
years; scarce May migrant here although there are still numbers plying the
skies of the western shore in May).  1 Peregrine Falcon (at the Clay Island
hacking tower).  2 bobwhite (pathetic, yet true;  in the not-so-old days we
would had heard dozens).  

RAILS:  11 Clapper, 42 Virginia, 0 Black, 0 King, 1 Sora, 5 Common
Moorhens.  10 Black-necked Stilts (Elliott I.; 10 definitely, but possibly
as many as 13).  3 Solitary Sandpipers.  2 turnstones & 14 Sanderlings
(Hooper's I.).  9 Royal, 2 Common, 35 Forster's & 10 Least Terns (the
latter at Hooper's I. offshore from Swan Harbor).  2 screech, 1 Barred & 1
horned owl (poor owl night).  28 Chuck-will's widows & 2 Whip-poor-wills.  

3 Red-headed Woodpeckers (1 each below Shorter's Wharf, at Hip Roof Road &
in Moneystump Swamp).  4 Bank Swallows.  6 Brown-headed Nuthatches.  55
Marsh Wrens (20 at night).  no northern, migrant warblers except for 6
Yellow-rumps.  8 Summer Tanagers.  

4 Grasshopper, 10 Savannah, 4 Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed, 70 Seaside, 3 Swamp &
2 White-throated sparrows.  13 Blue Grosbeaks.  20 Bobolinks (the best shot
for these is to spot flyovers soon after sunset, which is what these birds
were).  

Just north of the first bend in the road north of Shorter's Wharf is a
traditional concentration area for breeding SEASIDE SPARROWS.  Today there
were 33 there in sight simultaneously.  

EARLY (SOMEWHAT) BIRDS.  Counts of 9 Indigo Buntings, 9 Yellow-breasted
Chats, and 3 wood pewees were good.  These species are much easier to find
on the 2nd May count here, as is Yellow-billed Cuckoo (only 1 of the latter
today).  

NIGHT LIST (night officially ends at 5:00 A.M.).  23 species.

KILLDEER.  At the Birchmeiers' place off of Swan Harbor Rd., Hooper's
Island 2 adult Killdeers put on a sterling distraction display, calling and
flying around us to distract our attention from their two fuzzy, appealing
chicks (walnuts with legs).  The chick hid under the wooden walkway to the
dock, which is only a few inches off of the ground.

MAMMALS.  35 Sika Elk (The area between Bestpitch-Transqualing River and
the Elliott Island Road is the best place to see them at night that I know
of.).  5 White-tailed Deer.  2 Muskrats.  1 Virginia (Maryland, actually)
Opossum.  1 Raccoon.  2 Fox Squirrels.

URBAN HOMESTEADERS.  In Cambridge in the tiny grassy area bounded by the
nortbound lanes of the Route 50 Malkus bridge, the American Legion parking
lot, the Choptank River, and the old Route 50 bridge we saw an Eastern
Cottontail and a Woodchuck (Dirt Bear) at 10 A.M. 

REPTILES & OTHER HERPS.  Not a good night for calling frogs but we did hear
Bullfrogs, a few Gray Tree Frogs along Old Field Road, a few half-hearted
Green Tree Frogs, a few Spring Peepers, Southern Leopard Frogs, Green
Frogs, and Fowler's Toads.  Found a small, young watersnake at Moneystump
Swamp and a recent roadkill King Snake on Hip Roof Road c. 1/4 west of
Route 335 )where the sharp bend is).  Not very many butterflies today. 
Only a few dragonflies, these at Moneystump Swamp.

DEGRADATIONS (Mostly):  135 hard-earned species.  In spite of the knowledge
accumulated since these counts began in 1966, today's superior optics, and
the onset of the careful, discrete use of tape recordings, I have trouble
matching much less surpassing the species totals of many of the years in
the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.  There are in many cases just not the variety
and number of birds there used to be.  The Henslow's Sparrows and Sedge
Wrens are gone, and so nearly so are the Black Rails - 3 species we used to
get every time.  
Many of the neotropical birds are much scarcer, both those that breed here
and migrate through.  Many waterfowl species are way down, making it harder
to pick up lingering birds.  Today the shorebird flight was non-existant,
probably for reasons having to do with the weather rather than some
sinister population decline.  For years the saltmarsh has been degrading,
becoming more open and less lush.  I believe there are fewer Virginia and
King rails, Boat-tailed Grackles, Marsh Wrens, Willets, Seaside and
Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed sparrows.  In some past years I'd hear 10 or more
Soras.  Now it seems lucky to even get just one.  

On the other hand moorhens and Clapper Rails seem to have increased.  The
rapid erosion of Dorchester's islands has made it harder for nesting terns,
gulls, skimmers, and herons/ibises to make a go of it plus the suite of
marshbirds that breed in their wetlands.  Of course Bald Eagles and
bluebirds are doing fine.  Also good news is that Blackwater N.W.R. has
more than doubled in size in the past few decades.  And the Navy seems to
have stopped bombing Bloodsworth Island.             

"There was a time when meadow, grove and stream,
The world and every common sight,
To me did seem appareled in celestial light, 
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore.
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night and day,
The things that I have seen
I now can see no more." - Wordsworth.
   

RIGBY'S FOLLY, Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, near
Bellevue:  

Thursday, May 4.  Present in the late afternoon only.  1 northbound,
calling Caspian Tern with one of its left primary feathers in disarray.  1
Bufflehead.  Huge, 7-foot diameter, 1.5 plus foot high Mute Swan nest at
the head of the cove with 3 massive eggs.  5 Osprey nests within sight of
our shoreline (there are usually 4-6 each year).  20 Cedar Waxwings (3
flocks).  1 Hairy Woodpecker.  2 Great Horned Owls (began calling at 8:51
P.M. and kept at it for 10 minutes right in the yard).  

1 Gray Squirrel.  1 mouse in the traps since last weekend (in kitchen).  18
Diamondback Terrapin seen at 7 P.M..  At Lucy Point 2 River Otters,
vocalizing briefly, and, as they often seem to do on the rare occasions
when I see them anywhere, they reared up slightly in the water several
times to check me out.  About 100 feet offshore.  1 Fowler's Toad hopping
around the boxwood.  One of our 2 Tulip Trees, which died back halfway in
the drought a few years ago, already is loaded with the lovely, cup-shaped
peach-colored blossoms.  The other seemingly healthier one does not have
any blossoms yet.

Friday, May 5.  6 Gray Catbirds.  1 Yellow-breasted Chat.  1 yellowthroat
(probably a migrant).  1 Green Heron (a Muskrat went steamin' right by it
only a foot from the shoreline where the heron was but neither beast seemed
at all interested in the other).  1 crested flycatcher.  Bob Ringler,
coming in to help cover north Dorchester on Saturday, heard a
Chuck-will's-widow and Great Horned Owl.    

One water snake.  A nice Spotted Turtle in the ditch next to Field 4.  6
deer.  A few Spring Azures, Pearlcrescents, Red-spotted Purples, and Tiger
Swallowtails and  a Silver-spotted Skipper.  Our garage has once again
taken its tool.  A young cottontail was trapped inside and rather
dessicated when I found it today.  In the future I'll just open and then
close the doors when I'm finished.  In the past a Carolina Wren and various
Fowler's Toads have bought the farm here when the doors were left open
during the weekend, then closed when we left.  No good. 

Sunday, May 7.  A Yellow-billed Cuckoo calling in the yard.  A Gray
Squirrel.  In Woods 3 a small Painted Turtle was basking in the sun, its
carapace about 2 inches long.         

ROADKILLS DU JOUR.  Northbound on Route 301 a male Mallard near milepost
111, a lovely male Scarlet Tanager north of milepost 123 (a couple of
hundred yards shy of being off-topic [i.e., in Delaware]), briliant even in
death.  An interesting feature of the tanager was the presence of several
partially red feathers in the secondary coverts of the left wing, at the
base of those feathers, yet none on the right wing.  Far as I know the
males' wings are normally entirely black.

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 ....)