Rigby's Folly, Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, West
Ferry Neck Road near Royal Oak but nearer still to Bellevue.  6 cold, windy
days.  No Tundra Swans.  They're outtahere.  Other waterfowl seem to have
left early.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007.  49 species.  9 A.M. - 6:45 P.M.  50-58 degrees
F., NE 15-5 m.p.h. becoming nearly calm.  Overcast with rain in A.M. but
the best day species-wise.  Thunder & lightning last night with one very
heavy downpour in mid-morning.

6 Greater Yellowlegs (ties 2nd highest count for here).  7 Common Loons. 
26 Horned Grebes (still in pathetic numbers; will they ever recover?;
compare to counts of 150 on April 7, 1973, 383 on April 19, 1980, 130 as
early in the year as March 27, 1986).  A pair of Wood Ducks on The Pond. 
220 Ruddy Ducks.  1 thrasher.  15 juncos.  1 Wild Turkey.  Liz sees 2
Pileated Woodpeckers.  1 Snowy & 1 Great egret.  1 Eastern Phoebe.  3 Bald
Eagles.  0 gannets.

Also:  1 Diamondback Terrapin.  See 5 Southern Leopard Frogs.  No mice in
the traps since last weekend.  3 Gray Squirrels.  1 Eastern Cottontail.

Thursday, April 5.  Clear, NW 20-25 m.p.h., 46-54, cold.  Species not seen
yesterday:  1 Northern Harrier, apparently migrating across the Choptank
River into this strong wind.  2 Black Vultures.  2 Field Sparrows.  

Also:  20 deer in a group in Field 3 (the Clover Field).  2 Painted Turtles
sunning in the protected area of Woods 4.  A Mud Turtle in the Wool Sedge
Depression in Woods 2.  In the garage five dead mice are inside an
otherwise empty kitchen plastic trash can, must have jumped into there from
the adjacent black bureau where they nest (and nest, and nest).  First
outdoor cookout conducted with a warm vest on and my neck gaiter.  

Friday, April 6.  Fair, NW-WNW 20 but subsiding in mid-afternoon, 42-52
degrees F.  Am outside only from noon until dark.  Cold.  

Species seen for the first time during this stay:  2 Northern Rough-winged
Swallows, a male Brown-headed Cowbird, 12 Double-crested Cormorants, 2
Eastern Towhees, 2 Chipping Sparrows (singing), 31 Northern Gannets (many
of them plunge-diving), 25 Bonaparte's Gulls (only one of them an
immature), a Tufted Titmouse, and a Yellow-rumped Warbler.  Also:  940 Surf
Scoters (impressive but they have not been in the thousands for the last
few years they way they were in the 1990s and the earlier years of the
present century), 12 Ospreys, 2 Red-tailed Hawks, 3 Long-tailed Ducks, 7
Common Loons, 12 Horned Grebes, and 1 Snowy Egret.

The rough-winged swallows hunt very close to us as we walk in the lee and
in the sun along the hedgerow bordering the north side of Fields 5, 6 and
7.  They are such fluid, smooth flyers, wings beating more slowly than
other swallows, yet they swoop and dive almost breathtakingly, covering
ground and air rapidly in swift arcs, dipping and rising.  Certain birds'
flight is a source of amazement.  These little brown swallows fly as
beautifully as any bird.  Pete Dunne (and many others) consider
Swallow-tailed Kites masters of the air and sky, as they are, "the wind
given form" in Pete's words.  But the roughies are one of my favorites, and
just as amazing.  Agile.  Graceful.  Splendid, seemingly effortless,
flight. 

Inside the Field 1 hunting blind the Black Vultures have one egg tucked in
amond a couple of dozen Canada Goose decoys.  I wonder what they think of
the decoys.  Today the wind finally dies in the afternoon allowing
piscivorous birds a respite.  Ospreys catch fish and gannets reappear, many
of them plunge-diving.

Five Painted Turtles sunning in W4.  A lovely Mourning Cloak rising up off
the ground from the driveway between Woods 2 & Woods 6.  Today we take a
"Shadbush Walk" but only find 4, 2 in Woods 2 and 2 in Woods 5.  Five of
the 19 orange road cones along parts of the driveway contain mouse nests.  

At Bellevue at 3:30 P.M.:  2 Common Loons, 1 Horned Grebe, 1 male Common
Goldeneye, a female Long-tailed Duck, 12 Buffleheads, and 5 Forster's
Terns.

Roofers repair the flashing around the east chimney.  Relax in the morning,
reading Mary Chesnut's journals and listening to the Scottish  Symphony,
the Pathetique, and Ippolitov-Ivanov's charming Caucasian Sketches.

Saturday, April 7.  Overcast with wet snow in A.M., less than an inch, but
beautifully coats every thing, the forest floor, the clusters of needles on
the pines, and, especially, the NE sides of the pines' trunks.  By the end
of the day most of it has melted.  34-44 degrees F., NW 15-20, becomes
partly clear in afternoon.  Spend 3 hours cutting with the triple-extension
saw overhanging pine boughs on the Olszewski trails: 1:30-4:30.      

12 deer in Field 1.  Liz sees a Gray Squirrel in the yard Willow Oak.  

Easter Sunday, April 8.  What could be more appropriate to play on 89.5 on
Easter than a high-end choral group's rendition of 'What shall we do with a
drunken sailor?'  What was the programer thinking?

31-44 degrees, variously clear and overcast, switches back and forth, NW-W
15-20+ m.p.h.  Cold.  

Blackwater N.W.R. inclduing Maple Dam and Shorter's Wharf roads, Gum Swamp,
Shorter's Marsh, and Liner's Road.  7:15 A.M. - 1:15 P.M.

In Pool 1:  a Pied-billed Grebe giving its full call, 9 Gadwalls, 3 black
ducks & 4 coots.  Elsewhere:  4 Blue-winged Teal.  30 shovelers.  145
Green-winged Teal.  6 Hooded & 3 Common mergansers (all the mergs
female-plumaged).  9 Great Egrets.  24 Bald Eagles.  4 harriers.  1 adult
male Peregrine falcon shoots right in front of the car, and very low,
flushing the yellowlegs.  47 Greater & 2 Lesser yellowlegs.  9 Least
Sadnpipers.  120 Dunlin.  4 Wilson's Snipe.  4 Caspian Tern (3 of these in
Gum Swamp).  65 Forster's Terns.  16 Bonaparte's Gulls (Gum Swamp).  70
Tree Swallows.  18 bluebirds.  12 Chipping Sparrows.  6 meadowlarks.

No white pelicans.  I think they were seen yesterday.

Also: a River Otter, leaping and plunging like a small cetacean in the
tidal area opposite Pool 5B.  i'm guessing that otters are the source of
prints left in many areas of mud in the tidal areas, which have been
greatly exposed in recent weeks due to the northerly winds.  An adult Bald
Eagle plunges down and snatches a White Perch from the surface of the tidal
waters adjacent to Pool 3C, very close to my car.

Rigby in the afternoon.  Daughter Anne arrives from Philadelphia.  The 3 of
us see a herd of 30 (thirty!) deer in Field 1, one of them leucistic, at
5:10 P.M.  This is the 2nd most I've ever seen here.  A Painted Turtle in
Woods 4.  

Monday, April 9.  37-53, WNW 15+, fair, very low tide, still cold. 
Daughter, Mary and son-in-law Mike join us.  They arrive at night at 12:45
A.M.  Pancake breakfast, mine with brown sugar, butter, and syrup.  

165 Ruddy Ducks.  3 Red-tailed Hawks.  1 adult Northern Gannet.  1 adult
Bald Eagle.  10 Lesser Scaup (far fewer than usual in the last few
springs).  

The 5 of us cut thorns and bushes, remove driftwood, and cut the tops of
tussocks to make the area at Lucy Point, where there are chairs for
enjoying the sunsets, a place that can be, for the first time, maintained
by mowing.  Then we hit the Olszewski trails and remove from the trails a
couple of hundred pine boughs that I had cut on Saturday.   

Headin' home.  A touch of class at the Middletown Wawa:  a messy,
hand-lettered sign on the men's restroom door:  "Now hiring for all
shifts."  Nevertheless, this fails to take the delicious edge off of my
Wawa dinner of chili and rice with lemonade.   

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 ....)