IN MARYLAND:

Thursday, May 18.  A Gray Squirrel at Rigby.

Sunday, May 21.  Route 301 in Charles County, MD.  A lot of sprawl, esp. in
the Waldorf area.  Tatoo parlor, Hooter's, liquor stores, Doo Woop motels. 
2 roadside adult Red-shouldered Hawks, one of the world's most beautiful
birds.  Lots of Tiger Swallowtails.  9 jets in very tight formation - Armed
Forces Day.  

Rigby's Folly, Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, 25124
West Ferry Neck Road near Royal Oak but nearer still to Bellevue.  191
miles from Jack & Sue's house near Kilmarnock.  1:15 - 4:30 P.M. only, the
last 1.5 hours spent taking a nappypoo. 

UNCHARISMATIC MEGA-AVIFAUNA.  In need of a fecundity upgrade?  The Black
Vulture nest George and I found April 23 still with 2 unhatched eggs.  The
eggs have been moved within the blind ... again, a 3rd shift.  Maybe like
some nightjars they move the eggs whenever they are disturbed.  Mute Swan
nest, first checked out on May 4, still has just 3 eggs.  

After I built little ledges under the dock several years ago so the swallow
nests would stop slipping off into the Bay the Barn Swallows ceased nesting
there.  But today a pair has a nest, on a ledge; no eggs yet.  A 2nd pair
is hanging around, too.  Be fruitful and multiply.  Also: a hummingbird, a
Yellow-breasted Chat singing, 7 deer, a cottontail, and 2 Red-tailed Hawks.
      

On the way home to Philadelphia an American Kestrel just north of the
intersection of routes 309 X 481 (Queen Annes County).

IN VIRGINIA:

Friday, May 19, drive down to Heathsville on Virginia's Northern Neck.  4
Ospreys hanging in the wind over the bluffs on the south end of the Route
301 bridge.  Just east of 301 on Route 3 there is a stretch of about 4
miles of forest that looks very much like the Gypsy Moth-damaged woodlands
I used to see in the Poconos.  

But the gently rolling country of the NORTHERN NECK is beautiful, full of
rich deciduous woodlands, low swampy areas with Skunk Cabbage and a few
Beaver dams as well as open fresh water swamps rank with aquatic plants,
and lush fields.  Some of the clay bluffs at Westmoreland State Park are
more than 100 feet high.  Ospreys everywhere.  I pass Monroe and
Washington's birthplaces as well as Robert E. Lee's Stratford Hall
Plantation.  I haven't been to the Northern Neck since about 1950, when I
was 10.

Spend the night at the lovely home of Tad and Connie de Bordenave.  Tad and
I are schoolmates.  Their place is near Heathsville on Hull Creek.  There
we see or hear:  2 each of nighthawk, Spotted Sandpiper &
Chuck-will's-widow plus 8 Bank Swallows and several Opsreys.  The next
morning there is a Gray Squirrel, a Summer Tanager, a calling Black-billed
Cuckoo, a Red-eyed Vireo and 2 American Redstarts.  I almost drive into a
bobwhite as we leave.  Pair of Blue Grosbeaks nearby.  

Saturday, May 20, 2006.  9 A.M. - 5 P.M.  TANGIER ISLAND, Accomack County,
Virginia.  Thirty-three of us visit Port Isobel, the splendid Chesapeake
Bay Foundation facility of c. 250 acres, a separate segment, of Tangier
Island on its east side.  Audubon Society of Northern Virginia, Fairfax
Audubon Society, and folks from other organizations.  59 species.  

HABITATS.  Port Isobel comprises beach, dunes, saltmarsh, lawn, and an old
fill area that has considerable elevation (6-7 feet I'd estimate) by local
standards.  Port Isobel has been planted heavily by the former owner and
has an extensive stand of bamboo, Loblolly Pines, Tulip Trees, and many
other deciduous species.  There are several attractive buildings with many
artifacts, old bottles, shells, maps, and numerous objets trouves plus the
jaw of a large whale and some of its huge vertebrae.  A totally charming
and enchanting setup.  

WEATHER.  Fair-clear, temps in the 60s to mid-70s, winds 10-15 m.p.h.
initially, stronger when we head back, westerly or northwesterly.  A gem,
more like an early October day during a cold front.

Since birders don't get out here often I think it is worthwhile to publish
our entire list.  In most cases these are APPROXIMATE numbers.  Since we
split up into diferent configurations there were probably additional birds
seen that I didn't hear about.

the TRIP OUT.  We boarded our boat, the "Lonnie Carroll," captained by
Charles Parks of Tangier I., in the Smith Point marina on the SE end of the
Northern Neck and motored down the Little Wicomico River, slipped past the
Smith Point light, and proceeded ESE across Chesapeake Bay.  Jack Carroll
organized this trip and secured Bill Portlock, naturalist extraordinaire of
the C.B.F., and myself as co-leaders.  On the way out, in deep water, Bill
demonstrates how to take readings of salinity and water temperature for
each meter of depth.  

Northern Gannet 1.  A sub-adult bird seen several miles offshore c. 10
A.M..  Sometimes they linger in the lower Bay into June.  Groups of
pelicans and cormorants are already flying NE to their colonies north of
Tangier Island.

MIGRANT LANDBIRDS:  1 each of Blackburnian (!) and Magnolia warbler, an
immature male American Redstart, a Baltimore Oriole.  The 3 warbler species
were foraging in a small group of Tulip Trees (what I call them; the proper
name is apparently Yellow-poplar but also known as tulip-poplar or
tuliptree).  

SHOREBIRDS.  11 species.  Some of these species are still on the move north
as late as mid-June.  Nice, typical, representative group of migrants,
including:  5 Black-bellied & 10 Semipalmated plovers, 4 Spotted, 18
Semipalmated & 2 Least Sandpipers, 8 Ruddy Turnstones, only 1 Sanderling,
95 Dunlin, and 15 Sort-billed Dowitchers.  Species that are local breeders
include 6 American Oystercatchers and 3 Willets.  These shorebirds are
actively feeding and vocalizing, mostly along the saltmarsh guts and
mudflats, as the tide is, fortuitously, ebbing the entire time we are
there.  Shorebirds we have a shot at finding but don't:  Red Knot,
White-rumped Sandpiper & Whimbrel. 

HERONS/IBIS.  9 species (We only miss Cattle Egret).  These are all
locally-breeding species, in most cases doing so a few miles farther north
in the Smith Island, Maryland, area.  Great (8) & Snowy (7) egrets, Glossy
Ibis 20, Tricolored (7), Little Blue (7), Great Blue (1), Green (2),
Black-crowned Night (1) & Yellow-crowned Night (5) herons.  The Tangier I.,
VA, to Bloodsworth I., MD, axis/archipelago is one of the best places to
see Yellow-crowned Night Herons in both states.  Very rarely are they seen
on the Maryland Eastern Shore mainland.

OTHER Locally breeding COLONIAL BIRDS:  Double-crested Cormorant 70;  Brown
Pelican 80;  Great Black-backed (8), Herring (35) & Laughing (30) gulls; 
Royal (2), Common (4) & Forster's (12) terns.  Black Skimmer 1.  Not all of
these birds breed locally every year.  The first 4 species above only began
nesting in Virginia within my lifetime.    

For at least 10+ years or so there have been COLONIES of hundreds of
cormorants, hundreds of Herring and scores of Great Black-backed gulls, and
many hundreds of pelicans several miles to the north at South Point Marsh,
where the eastward-shifting remnants of Shanks and Cheeseman islands now
abut the saltmarsh.  Royal Terns have had occasional big colonies in this
area as well as on the Fox Islands several miles to the east (also owned by
C.B.F.).  Laughing Gulls have nested on the Fox Islands.  Skimmers formerly
nest both on the Fox Islands and on the sandbars in the Shanks-Cheeseman
areas, which are very maritime with growths of Sea Rocket and big tussocks
of a species of Panic Grass (Panicum) whose name I do not know.  Common and
Forster's terns sometimes nest on the small, marshy islands (called tumps)
north of Tangier Island but still in Virginia waters.

OTHER PORT ISOBEL BIRDS TODAY (Most of these are presumed breeders): 
Canada Goose (50 plus at least 32 goslings in addition), American Black
Duck 9, Mallard 8, Osprey 12, Bald Eagle (1 adult; no known Tangier I. nest
that I know of but has bred recently on Hog Neck in MD just north of the
MD/VA line as well as on Cherry Island, a long, extensive hammock on Smith
Island well within the confines of the Glenn L. Martin** N.W.R.), Clapper
Rail 1, Great-crested Flycatcher 1 (may have been a migrant), Eastern
Kingbird 6, White-eyed Vireo 1, Fish Crow 10, Purple Martin 10, Barn
Swallow 35, Carolina Wren 1, Gray Catbird 3, Brown Thrasher (may have been
a migrant), European Starling 8, Common Yellowthroat 2, Seaside Sparrow 3,
Song Sparrow 2, Northern Cardinal 1, Red-winged Blackbird 12, Boat-tailed
Grackle 12, Brown-headed Cowbird 2, House Finch 6, and House Sparrow 5. 

** GLENN L. MARTIN was an important aviation pioneer of the 1930s and 1940s
who held several aviation records.  The WWII Martin Bomber was named after
him (and designed by him?).  He owned several 1,000 acres of northern Smith
I. as his hunting lodge plus a house in the Smith Island town of Ewell.  I
stayed in this house several Junes for a week each year in the 1970s at
which time Martin's personal, monographed china was still in the kitchen
there.  He used to sometimes come down from Baltimore on his large yacht. 
He was the Martin in Martin Marietta.   

We see a cafe-au-lait-colored Canade Goose, probably the same bird present
for the Eastern Shore of Virginia Birding and Wldlife Festival field trip
this past October 9, 2005.

I was startled at the end of the trip to be presented with about $40, I
guess out of sympathy for the 260-mile drive from Philadelphia.  This was a
fine kindness and much appreciated but I gave it to Bill Portlock for the
C.B.F. (unrestricted funds!).  In this connection the Shell station on Rt.
3 had gas for $2.67.  As soon as you're in MD gas is at least $0.20 more.

OTHER THAN BIRDS we did not see much animal life except for numerous Winter
Jellyfish, a few Fiddler Crabs, and several Orange Sulphurs, plus various
fishes being eaten by the Ospreys.

Off to the East a few miles lies nearly mile-long WATTS ISLAND, a part of
the Chesapeake Marshlands N.W.R. complex (nee Blackwater N.W.R.), c. 120
acres, that has had a traditional heronry and several huge (i.e., piled
very high), old, but still-used Osprey nests plus Peregrine Falcon hacking
facilities.  Today Watts shows up to good effect in the clear air with such
excellent visibility.  Watts hosts most of the breeding landbirds listed
above.  

On one of my few visits there, for the entire morning of September 2, 2001,
I was very impressed with the large numbers (for a narrow island) of
breeding Song Sparrows (18), cardinals 12), catbirds (13) and Carolina
Wrens (16).  This is too early in the fall for there to be a significant
(or any?) influx of Song Sparrow or catbird migrants.  At Port Isobel Bill
Portlock showed us today the old graves from Watts that had been
transported to save them from the inexorable erosion that plagues Watts (as
well as all other Bay islands).  

i sing of the Bay.
my song is of the islands
ere they wash away. - 'Chesapeake haiku'.

For many years a hermit, a Princeton graduate, lived on Watts in the early
part of the Twentieth Century.  Watts is characterized by good growths of
deciduous trees, including cherries, Sassafras, Sweet Gum, locusts,
Persimmons, and hackberries with Red Cedars and loblollies being lesser
components.  It is rather elevated by local standards but has saltmarsh and
beach as well.  Formerly it boasted a light off the south end.  

The north wind and rather early May date are probably the reasons we didn't
see any Wilson's Storm-Petrels, which prefer the deep waters around the
shipping channel.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE (My apologies if I left anyone off this list; these are
all the names I have available here [with the spellings as I was given
them).  Are Andresen, Harry Armistead, Sue Bark, Audrey & Ralph Brainard,
Jack Carroll, Pam Collins, Cameron Cousins, Lorraine Cuthbert, Tad de
Bordenave, Liezel, Lynette & Nicola D'souza, Sandra Galletta, Margret
Gerdts, Howard Gofreed and company, Jim Groff, Lance & Mary Alyce Johnsen,
Jeffrey Leach, Tanya Neeley & company, Bill Portlock, Lou Schiavo, Rick
Skelton, Brian & Jane Smith, Rita Stover, Tom Teeples, Evey Thorndyke. 

Spent the evening at Jack Carroll and Sue Bark's charming wood house at the
head of Mill Creek near Kilmarnock.  Lovely woodlands with distant
Chuck-will's-widows and Southern Leopard Frogs calling at dusk and a great
star show afterwards.  Yellow-billed Cuckoo calling the next morning.

Best to all.-Henry ("Harry") T. 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 ....)