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Subject:

Ferry Neck, Blackwater, Hooper's I., Jan. 13-15 (POSSIBLE Barrow's Goldeneye)

From:

Henry Armistead

Reply-To:

Henry Armistead

Date:

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 12:13:28 -0500

SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 2007.

Rigby's Folly, Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, 25124
West Ferry Neck Road near Royal Oak but nearer still to Bellevue:

1 Bald Eagle.  5 Common Loons.  8 Common Goldeneyes.  60 Surf Scoters.  118
feral Mallards.  12 Northern Flickers on the lawn more or less together. 
45 Lesser Scaup.  12 Redheads.  1 female Black Scoter.  5 Ruddy Ducks.  1
Great Blue Heron.  30 Song Sparrows, actually one of the higher property
counts; they continue to favor the scrubby growth of weeds, small
hawthorns, Panicum, and persimmons on either side of the 700 foot stretch
of driveway in front of the house..  20 House Finches.  30 Cedar Waxwings. 
a Great Horned Owl flushed from Woods 7.  One unID'd HUMMINGBIRD that Liz
saw zip by; we did not relocate it.  1 Gray Squirrel.   

MYSTERY MEAT.  An unidentified floating object seen c. 150 yards from the
dock in Irish Creek attracted my attention.  I put on the clunky chest
waders and retrieved it, a female Black Scoter evidently shot and left for
dead by hunters on the NW side of Irish Creek.  Where the bird was floating
the water came to within about 4 inches of the wader's top.  A different
bird from the one noted above, which was very much alive.  I continue to
consider so-called sea duck "hunting" as basically target practice since
when you cook a scoter do it with a brick and when you can stick a fork
into the brick eat it and throw the duck away.   

3 mice caught since last weekend (Jan. 6-7), when 2 had been caught in the
previous 4-week interval plus 1 the morning after my first night there.  2
small bucks at the confluenece of Field 4, Woods 2, and the driveway.  57
degrees at 10 P.M. today.     

SUNDAY, JANUARY 14.

Sometimes a spur-of-the-moment field trip of a few hours is much more
satisfying than most full-day, hard-charging extravaganzas are.

Blackwater N.W.R.  7-9 A.M.  31 AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS in these clusters
going from E to W on Wildlife Drive:  1, 2, 11, 8 and 9 = 31.  It's
surprising how hard it is to count these huge birds but they tend to clump
together and at a distance it is easy to miss one or two in a
tightly-packed group.  For this reason I think it's possible there may have
been 32 or even 33.  The last few times I've seen them here they've spent
most of the time preening and resting, much less feeding, and still less
time flying.

Also here:  90 very vocal Tundra Swans.  20 black ducks.  35 shovelers. 
110 pintails.  43 Ring-necked Ducks in Pool 1.  45 Common Mergansers just E
of the Blackwater River bridge at Rt. 335.  10 Bald Eagles.  2 kestrels.  1
kingfisher.  4 Fish Crows.  4 Brown-headed Nuthatches.  8 bluebirds.  3,000
Common Grackles.

Incidentally, Levin Willey does systematic surveys of each of the main
impoundments at Blackwater on most Sundays.  I am sure his counts are more
accurate than my rather quick, drive-through ones.  Levin found a dead King
Snake nearby on January 7.  

Tom MIller said that Greg Inskip saw a juvenile Golden Eagle on the refuge
today from the end of Wildlife Drive.  Greg says Goldens favor the field
area there where the old house with the wraparound porch and the broken
down silo are.

Gum Swamp:  A Barred Owl perched in a big hardwood c. 9:05 A.M.

Hip Roof Road:  8 flickers in one group.  30 robins.

Hooper's Island.  9:15 - 11:45 A.M.  215 Tundra Swans, most on the E side
of Barren Island.  69 Lesser Scaup.  145 Surf Scoters.  20 Long-tailed
Ducks.  70 Buffleheads.  20 Common Goldeneyes.  1 Red-throated & 1 Common
loon.  18 Northern Gannets.  32 Brown Pelicans resting on the little sod
tump island just off the S end of Barren Island; as with last weekend there
were NO birds of any species on any of the pound net stakes I checked.  4
Bald Eagles.  1 American Oystercatcher being chased by a Fish Crow as seen
on the Honga River side of Middle Hooper's Island from 1616 Steamboat Wharf
Road.  12 Dunlin.  

A EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVE atop a phone pole at 2357 Hooper's Island Road,
also heard calling, the usual COO COO coo, but sometimes the 2nd note with
2 syllables and an upward inflection on the 2nd syllable, that sounding
quite like the first note in a typical Mourning Dove call.  1 kingfisher. 
2 Fish Crows.  70 TREE SWALLOWS on Middle Hooper's Island, perched mostly
on a dock; My first impression was that there were 30 or so but when a
Sharp-shinned Hawk went by flying steadily N the swallows all got up and it
was quite easy to see there were c. 70.  4 bluebirds.  1 Boat-tailed
Grackle.  2 cowbirds.  14 House Finches.

POSSIBLE Barrow's Goldeneye.  9:45 A.M.  Watched for 2-3 minutes with fixed
lens 32X Leica Televid scope at c. 100 yards.  A female goldeneye with at
least half the bill (distal part) a conspicuous, more like 2/3, clean
yellow and with an abruptly rising forehead and rather rounded head
otherwise overall.  Seen from 2454 Hooper's Island Road on the Chesapeake
Bay (W) side of the road, where there's a pile of lumber.  Unfortunately I
did not have any books with me and did not have the presence of mind (or
knowledge then) to:  note the relative size of the bird compared with
Common Goldeneye, the rather extensive "mane" held to be on the back of a
female BAGO's head, whether the bill seemed stubbier than with COGO, and
other field marks.  

I don't know enough about separating the 2 species to say with certainty if
this was a Barrow's Goldeneye or not.  I CAN tell you that the extensive
yellow on the bill and the forehead shape was easy to see and under good
conditions with a calm sea and the sun behind me.  I'd like very much to
hear from others what they think.  Not seen in direct comparison with any
Common Goldeneyes, but a few COGOs were spread up and down the length of
Hooper's I. on both the Honga River and the Chesapeake Bay side today.  She
did not fly (but was actively diving) so I was unable to note the relative
amount of white on the wing, which is less in Barrow's.  The yellow on the
bill made her immediately stand out from any other goldeneye I've ever seen
on the Chesapeake.

My thanks to Bob Ringler and Les Roslund for posting this right away on
MDOSPREY and the Talbot Bird Club e-mail tree.  I hope it can be determined
if this really was/is a Barrow's Goldeneye.  I don't have the knowledge to
do this.

66 degrees in Cambridge at 12:15 P.M.

Rigby's Folly, 1-5 P.M.:  45 Tundra Swans.  12 Redheads.  45 Lesser Scaup. 
210 Surf Scoters.  30 Long-tailed Ducks.  125 Buffleheads.  3 Common
Goldneyes.  1 female Red-breasted Merganser.  16 Northern Gannets, 3 of
them seen plunge-diving.  1 Sharp-shinned and 1 Cooper's Hawk.  1 Great
Horned Owl calling in mid-afternoon.  1 Pileated Woodpcker, nice view in
flight.  2 Field Sparrows.  Also:  2 Gray Squirrels.  

I wanted to go swimming today as a sort of stunt but put it off until
Monday but the clouds and wind then discouraged me from this foolishness.  
    

MONDAY, JANUARY 15.  Rigby's Folly, 9 A.M. - 3 P.M.  Mostly overcast, winds
S at 10, temperature high 50s to low 60s.  A Savannah Sparrow.  An imm.
female Sharp-shinned Hawk, seen twice.  2 Black Vultures.  2 Red-tailed
Hawks.  1 adult Bald Eagle.  11 Northern Flickers in one group sharing the
top of 2 adjacent Sweet Gums with some Cedar Waxwings, the latter
flycatching.  Cedar Waxwing 55.  

Some of the daffoldils are up over 1 foot, a few have small buds.  A 12
inch young Black Rat Snake resting snug and warm on top of the heating
element in the Pump House.  When I touched it it slithered off with some
dispatch but not really very quickly.  Water temperature in the cove a
balmy 53 degrees F.  

DEER CORN.  Bought ($14) 100 lbs. from the Shore Sportsman in Easton.  The
man in the store asked if I was still feeding deer (I think the hunting
season is over) but I told him "I like to feed the Canvasbacks in Cambridge
and the squirreleepoos."  He said: "Oh, so you're not a hunter."  End of
conversation.

GPS.  Experimented with my Garmin GPS map76CS, which I have had for over a
year but not used until today, it being misplaced for almost all of that
time.  It's telling me the coordinates at the end of the dock are 38
degrees 41.944 minutes X 076 degrees 12.916 minutes, plus or minus 15 feet,
at its best reading, when it has "acquired" 10 satellites, and that my
elevation is 4-7 feet.  Now I have to relearn how to mark a waypont and set
the GPS up so it records a track.  

Since the number of satellites acquired and the intensity with which they
are received varies over time depending on the satelites' own tracks and
the environment surrounding the GPS user, so does the calculation of the
longitude and latitude readings.  Today that only varies by 1 or 2
thousandths of a minute, which seems to me to be astounding.  

One thousandth of a minute is, if I caculate correctly, only about 6.1
feet.  Obviously a GPS is a great way to pinpoint the location of a bird or
a nest instead of perhaps causing the wrong kind of attention by tying
ribbons on trees or saying it was "about 100 paces north of the big oak
where Elmo shot the white buck back in the big freeze of '77, just off from
Five points."    

The map is really crude, more so than with the smaller Garmins we used in
Arkansas.  But the most detailed scale for a track is down to c. 20 feet
per the 0.25 inch scale on this gizmo's screen (and can go "out" to 50
miles or more showing highway numbers, navigation markers, etc.).  Time
readings are determined by satellites and are supposed to be perfect.  One
has to have a clear shot at the sky for all this to work optimally.  The
initial phobic reaction of a Luddite such as myself to this thing is
diminished somewhat now.  I feel I'm on the way.       

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 ....)