Talbot County, esp. Ferry Neck residents ... I'd very much like to hear if
you know how much rain fell and how strong the winds were from Ernesto.  I
was in Virginia at the time.  Thank you.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2006.

Middletown, Delaware.  c. 1,600 Brown-headed Cowbirds in a single flock
just S of this incredibly-rapidly-developing town.

Rigby's Folly, Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, 25124
West Ferry Neck Road near Royal Oak but nearer still to Bellevue. 
5:30-7:30 P.M. only. 

47 Forster's Terns, 6th highest count, hunting out over the Choptank River
mouth.  5 Snowy Egrets.  Juvenile Great Horned Owl calling deep into the
evening and also into the wee small hours.  Feed me, Seymour!  1 Eastern
Cottontail.  3 does and 2 fawns including the partial albino fawn seen 2
weeks ago. 

Rigby, SATURDAY,SEPTEMBER 9.  Fair, winds SW 5, 72-84 degrees F.  Hot and
humid though not as much so as it would have been a month ago.  

2 Veeries.   1 Hairy Woodpecker.  9 Royal Terns.  1 male American Kestrel. 
1 Ruby-throated Hummingbird.  Also:  4 Gray Squirrels.  4 deer including a
buck.  2 Diamondback Terrapin.  A 5.5' Black Rat Snake near the woodpile,
very swollen, had had a very good meal apparently.    

1 of the Pokeberries on the bank of the Lawn Pond has leaves 1' long. 
Fowlers Toads are everywhere, mostly small ones perhaps one-third grown. 
Butterflies:  1 Least Skipper.  4 Red-spotted Purples.  1 Orange Sulphur. 
7 Pearlcrescents.  3 Monarchs.    

Spent 8+ hours chainswing, mowing, removing downed branches and limbs from
the lawn and trails, stacking logs, clipping vegetation hanging over the
trails, etc.  Hurricane Ernesto blew over 4 big Black Locusts.  Green pine
needles, brown pine needles, oak leaves, and green Sweet Gum "balls" are
strewn all over the ground along with hundreds of branches and a few big
limbs. 

Rigby, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10.  61 species.  6:45 A.M. - 3:15 P.M.  Fair, NE
winds 5+ m.p.h., 70-80 degrees F., yet quite hot and humid.  Only did an
hour of bushwhacking today.  

A nice flight of passerines.  9 warbler species:  1 Black-and-white, 2
Chestnut-sided, 3 Magnolia, 2 Black-throated Blue, 1 Black-throated Green,
1 Blue-winged, and 1 Hooded warbler plus 7 American Redstarts and a
Northern Parula.  The hooded is only about the 6th property record; it was
a non-adult male.  

Even better is a YELLOW-THROATED VIREO.  A beauty at close range.  The only
other 1 I've seen recently was a singing male on July 19, 1981.  I've
several other records from the 1950s that may very well have been this
species.  However, considering my level of experience then, they are just
as likely to have been misidentified Pine Warblers.

Also:  2 Bald Eagles.  4 Snowy Egrets.  3 Greater Yellowlegs flybys.  1
Caspian Tern early in the day headed straight S; as when Ryan Howard "goes
yard", that tern was OUTTAHERE.  1 Eastern Screech-Owl in mid-afternoon.  2
Downy Woodpeckers (curiously, the only woodpecker today).  3 Red-eyed
Vireos.  2 House Wrens.  1 Wood Thrush.  30 robins.  14 waxwings.  1 green
Scarlet tanager.  4 Bobolinks.  

Butterflies:  1 Least Skipper.  1 Tiger Swallowtail.  4 Monarchs.  5
Pearlcrescents.  3 Buckeyes.  1 Cloudless Sulphur.  5 Red-spotted Purples. 
Also: 2 Diamondback Terrapin.  Only 1 deer.    

The feral Mallards have once again fouled/fowled the dock.  Their charm is
starting to wear thin.  The Olszewskis came early to do some crabbing.  I
suggested they try out in Irish Creek.  I am not sure if the aftereffects
of 200 some feral Mallards are good for seafood.  Whatever the case, Jimmy
& Bruce Olszewski caught a bushel or so of Blue Crabs.  They also caught
and released a terrapin.  

BLACK LOCUSTS.  Much as I love them they do blow over easily.  Spread
rapidly, often through the root systems.  Out along the Irish Creek trails
there are several dozen big ones now, descendants from the one that
survived of a dozen I planted in the 1960s.  The blossoms are pretty in
mid-May, emblematic of the start of the crabbing season.  Warblers find
small worms in their meagre foliage in the fall.  Orchard Orioles sometimes
nest in them, up high.  In spite of its splintery nature, faced with gale
force winds, the wood is very hard and rather tough to chainsaw, but once I
burned some green sections in the fireplace the same day they were cut. 
When they do blow over the uprooted areas often form small depressions that
can turn into vernal pools, albeit rather dark and unvegetated ones.  We
have many partially blownover trees whose semi-exposed, octopus-like root
systems still have a tentative purchase in the soil, forming a Laocoon-like
tangle that can confound the unwary boot or hapless lawnmower.  The short
thorns on the branches can also confound the careless landscaper.  Wear
gloves!  The rounded leaves blow easily in the breeze, forming an
attractive, lacey filigree in summer.  Black Locusts aren't very black.  

ROSE OF SHARON.  Our bushes got a big shot in the arm from the rains of the
last month and now have their best blossoms of the year.  Several weeks ago
they looked as if they were "over" but now they are almost lurid.  However,
for some reason they are devoid of the skippers and Tiger Swallowtails that
thronged to them in early August.  Good for hummingbirds.

SEA LAVENDER.  John Camper, Jr., at the request of the Olszewskis, brought
a load of stone to beef up our modest, "green" boat launching ramp at the E
end of the lawn.  Unfortunately, in spite of my requests to avoid them,
this buried the one pink-flowered Marsh Hibiscus on the property and some
Sea Lavender.  Perhaps they will struggle up above the stone next year the
way they did previously.  ("The force that through the green fuse drives
the flower" - Dylan Thomas)  Our one white Marsh Hibiscus, at Lucy Point,
died last year of (?) natural causes.  However, between Lucy Point and
Tranquility, I discovered yesterday healthy Sea Lavender in 3 areas,
consisting of 14, 1, and 23 clumps respectively, going from SE to NW. 
Interesting in that these areas were high clay banks a few years ago until
Hurricane Isabel came along and lowered them several feet.  They're still
clay rather than saltmarsh peaty-tumpy areas.  Nevertheless Sea Lavender as
well as Distichlis spicata, Spartina patens, Baccharis halimifolia, and
Phragmites have established strong footholds there.  These are all behind
the granite rip rap and sea wrack.  I took some color photographs of the
Sea Lavender today.  It may very well have been here last year and I
overlooked it then.  Some of the clumps are as big as any I've seen along
the Atlantic coast on the Virginia barrier islands.  

JAPANESE BLACK PINE (Pinus thunbergii).  For reasons best known to me back
then, I planted one near the garage about 25 years ago.  This summer it
died.  We've had a couple of cycles this year of drought (most of the year
into June) then deluge (late June), then drought (July into late August)
and deluge again (late August/early September).  Mixed signals to the
vegetation and froggies.  

NUTS TO YOU.  Last Thursday I gathered two 5-gallon buckets of acorns in
front of the Lovett Library in Philadelphia, where countless 1000s of them
litter the walks.  Like walking on marbles for library patrons.  The
municipal guard/janitor had raked them into piles for disposal.  All I had
to do was make a few swipes with my broad coal shovel.  I took these to
Rigby for the benefit of the Gray Squirrels.  Left the buckets on the
porch.  By early Saturday morning they'd already been patronized.  Then I
dumped them in a dozen spots around tree bases on the lawn.  Our own oaks
seem to have pretty good acorn production this summer.  Coals to Newcastle.

HEADIN' HOME.  A Woodchuck near Cordova, MD, and another S of Middletown,
DE.  Fattening up for winter.  But ... I don't think I've ever seen one
that wasn't fat, even in April.  

In retrospect, although I "had a good hurricane" in Virginia during
Ernesto, I regret not being at Rigby.  Might have seen a Sooty Tern or 2,
or perhaps a new yardbird, such as a jaeger or Bridled Tern.  As Rimbaud
(or Verlaine, I forget) wrote: "les jamais sont les toujours" ... the
nevers are the always.  "We may lose or we may win, but we will never be
here again,"  'Take it easy.'  "Take it easy, but take it." - Wood Guthrie.

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 ....)