RIGBY'S FOLLY, Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, West
Ferry Neck Road near Royal Oak but nearer still to Bellevue.
Saturday, July 14, 2007. This weekend son, George, hosts 12 of his friends
& does not have much time to bird, but he does see 2 Spotted Sandpipers, 2
Bald Eagles, a Wild Turkey, and a flock of some 30 peep, probably Least
Sandpipers, and the largest peep count ever for here.
July 20-23: 4 days of clear or fair skies, strong NE winds, low humidity,
and low to moderate temperatures. Lovely but rough for boating.
Friday, July 20. Late afternoon only. 1 Snowy Egret & 9 deer including a
nursing fawn.
Saturday, July 21. 40 species. 3 immature Bald Eagles (together, soaring
high). 2 Red-tailed Hawks. 1 Yellow-billed Cuckoo. 1 Caspian Tern. 3
Indigo Buntings. 1 Pileated Woodpecker at Lucy Point. 14 Ospreys in sight
simultaneously once.
A good swallow day: 45 Barns, 3 Trees, 2 Banks, 2 Northern Rough-wingeds &
7 Purple Martins. I looked in vain for a closeout 6th, a Cliff.
17 butterfly species, including 4 Monarchs, 14 Red Admirals (this species
is still on a tear), 2 Hackberry Emperors, 3 American Ladies, 4
Silver-spotted Skippers, 4 Tiger Swallowtails, 2 Red-spotted Purples & 5
Common Wood Nymphs. Missed: Little Wood Satyr. One of the hackberries
lit on my right index finger for at least a minute, one of the admirals on
the front of my white t-shirt. That's the extent of my St. Francis of
Assisi act today.
Cicadas are starting to "call." 6 deer including 3 bucks, one of them the
small leucistic fellow. Jared Sparks gave us and planted a fig tree
earlier this week.
34 frogs in The Pond: 1 Bullfrog and the rest Southern Leopard and Green
frogs. Only a couple of inches of water in The Pond. The other 2 smaller
ponds are dry. I partially fill the one in the yard with the garden hose.
The drought intensifies.
Go, Terps! 71 Diamondback Terrapin in the big SAV bed off Lucy Point but
only 7 (= 78 total) in the cove, the latter spot hard to census because of
its exposure to the strong wind today. The Lucy Point area is in the lee.
Agonistic behavior roundelay. An Osprey diving at one of the 3 Bald
Eagles. Earlier a Red-tailed Hawk tangling with one of the eagles. 2
Eastern Kingbirds ganging up on an American Crow with a 3rd one looking as
if it wanted to join in. A male Purple Martin diving at a flyby American
Kestrel, the latter an early fall migrant. Why can't we all just get
along?
John Swaine is disking Jim Meholic's fields today.
In the afternoon my house guests arrive bearing tuna steaks, vegetables,
beer, potato salad, corn-on-the-cob, hot dogs, pound cake, other goodies,
and much good cheer. Tomorrow we boat and band ... Brown Pelican chicks.
The lineup: Beth Wright, our Cornell University Ivory-billed Woodpecker
search team leader at Bayou de View, Arkansas. Beth has just finished a
stint doing shorebird (esp. Red Knot) surveys on the Eastern Shore of VA
for the William & Mary Center for Conservation Biology. Today she sports a
stunning Alaska Bird Observatory jersey featuring 3 jaegers. Beth has done
everything, been everywhere, but never flaunts it. Melanie Lynch, IT
Coordinator for "Chesapeake Bay Magazine" as well as photographer and
writer. Angela McMellen, who has a recent Ph.D. in wildlife management and
a new job in the Washington area (sorry, I forget where). Sarah Warner,
who was in Arkansas full-time with the Cornell IBWO search team and is now
working on a masters at the U. of Delaware studying the 3 breeding species
of marsh sparrows there.
While we finish dinner by the dock a Great Horned Owl calls in the
gathering dusk.
Sunday, July 22. A bat in the yard at 4 A.M. John Swaine is disking our
fields today, which attracts many Barn Swallows, starlings, and cowbirds,
and, for whatever reason, dragonflies (hunting insects also?). 2 fawns and
their mom at 6:30 P.M. in Field 4.
Monday, July 23. Basically just close down the house and leave but do see
a Bank and 50 Barn swallows (ties 5th highest Rigby count) over the fields.
1 adult Bald Eagle roosting at Frog Hollow. 1 fawn.
DORCHESTER COUNTY, Sunday, July 22:
Today my guests and I rise at 4 A.M. to go band pelicans. Since my boat
can only carry 3 passengers max, Beth drives to Chance at Deal Island to
ride out on bander extraordinaire, John Weske's, boat, a Privateer, with 7
other riders.
HOLLAND ISLAND, MIDDLE SEGMENT. The "Mud Hen" reaches here at 8 A.M. to
join John et al. From 8:15-11:15 A.M. we band 323 Brown Pelican chicks.
Tammy Otto catches 2 adult pelicans by stealthfully approaching the colony,
then quickly entering it with John's dip net. We dub her the Lara Croft of
pelican banders. Formerly responsible for the many birds at Baltimore's
National Aquarium, Tammy now works with the Whooping Cranes at Patuxent
Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, MD.
We probably banded all of the chicks that are big enough to take bands plus
a couple of dozen Double-crested Cormorant young. All around us are
numerous Herring and Great Black-backed Gull fuzzy, unfeathered young, many
of these swimming offshore away from us.
Partial list of others present (with apologies, some probably not spelled
correctly): Liz Carracino-Clark & her fiance (who collected glass bottle
shards), Tami Pearle, and Linh Phu & her friend.
Did some banding, perhaps 35 pelicans. Tricky to close the size 8 bands
with needle-nosed pliers without causing overlap, but after a while I sort
of get the hang of it. Wearing a glove on the right hand prevents me
getting a blister on my palm.
I find some pelican nests still with eggs: 2 nests with 1 egg, 4 with 2, 1
with 3, 1 with 1 young and 1 egg, and 1 with 2 eggs and 1 young (= 9 nests
still with eggs). I may have missed some but I suspect no more than 1-3
such nests. There is a Herring Gull nest with 1 egg. A cormorant nest
with 1 egg (I didn't pay much attention to this species; there are probably
other nests still with eggs).
Off in the distance is a group of 185 cormorants capable of flight that
fled at our advance. This island segment has a couple of dozen other young
corms we do not band, gathered in small creches. 2 Royal Terns fly over.
At one point 40 Great Black-backed Gullks are in sight simultaneously.
HOLLAND ISLAND, SOUTH SEGMENT. Head south here next, a new pelican colony,
a couple of weeks behind the middle segment nesters. Last year it looked
as if the pelicans were setting up shop here but they did not follow
through. On the south tip we examine the 2 Osprey chicks John had banded
earlier this summer. They are docile with beautiful yellowish-orange eyes
and formidable talons they choose not to use. There are 8 or 9 cormorant
nests, higher than the pelicans', in a small group of Red Cedars.
We do not linger long here out of respect to the many pelican young still
without down or feathers (called "naked chicks", as it were), since these
do not have much, if any, thermoregulatory competence and can die if
exposed to too much sun. John bands 24 (I think) pelican chicks. There
are many nests here still with eggs, to wit: 4 nests with 1 egg, 19 with 2
eggs, 22 with 3, 2 with 1 egg & 1 young, 1 with 1 egg & 2 young, and 1 with
2 eggs & 1 young for a total of 49, and, as I must say, I probably missed a
few in my haste.
Also seen at Holland Island: All 10 of Maryland's regularly nesting
herons/Glossy Ibis, including a Green Heron (not seen earlier this year), 3
Yellow-crowned Night Herons, a lingering Willet, 5 American Oystercatchers,
a Great Horned Owl (perched on a snag right out in the open near the
graveyard), and a Song Sparrow that Sarah heard. Butterflies: a Question
Mark, a Red Admiral & a Cabbage White. Several Marsh Hibiscus (white
flowers) are blooming on the SW side of Holland.
HOLLAND ISLAND, NORTH SEGMENT. Boat by the west and north sides but do not
land at this burgeoning Forster's (mostly) and Common tern colony with
hundreds of nests. 2 Great Black-backed & 1 Laughing gull (all adults).
East of here we run into dense SAV that, combined with the low tide,
defeats my attempts to cross to the east in the lee of Bloodsworth Island.
So we turn around, head back west, then north up the west side of
Bloodsworth, carefully avoiding the 4 submerged Sherman tanks that lurk
offshore there.
BLOODSWORTH ISLAND, Fin Creek specifically. 1 Monarch & 20 Diamondback
Terrapin. A Peregrine Falcon, 1 Northern Harrier, 1 Green Heron (the
scarcest heron species on these islands), 1 Clapper Rail, 3 Marsh Wrens, 5
Seaside Sparrows, 18 Black-crowned Night Herons, a "calico" heron
(maturing, mostly white immature Little Blue Heron beginning to get its
purplish and blue-gray alternate plumage, hence with a piebald appearance),
1 Bank Swallow, and 1 Yellow-crowned Night Heron. Many of the young Great
Blue Herons seem to have vacated their platform nesting sites.
BLACKWATER N.W.R. 4:30 P.M. Do a quick drive through since 2 of my guests
have not been here previously. 4 Bald Eagles. See a juvenile Least Tern.
A half-grown Woodchuck scurrying into a culvert near the entrance to
Wildlife Drive gives some relief to what is otherwise a bad case of 4-day
squirrel deprivation.
ROUGH SLEDDING. Today's boat ride totalled 29.6 miles. Very rough, the
wind 15-20+ m.p.h. the entire time. Gusting higher. We get quite wet.
Much of the ride I am apprehensive and stressed. White knuckles. The
outboard frequently in danger of being swamped by surges of water coming
over the stern. Even with one less passenger it would have been pretty
hairy. Most of the 11+ mile ride back to Crocheron was directly into the
wind coming across a big fetch to the northeast. 15-20 may not sound like
much wind but my 16'8" boat carries today c. 650+ lbs. of people, 240 lbs.
of fuel, and 100+ lbs. of gear (totals = c. 0.5 tons). Today I sustain 4
cuts (one from a cormorant's bill) and, somehow, a black eye (No, I did not
get fresh with any of my 4 lady house guests). We get back to Crocheron at
3 P.M.
Monday, July 23. SASSAFRAS, Kent County, MD. On the way home to
Philadelphia visit with Serge and Paula Duckett at their charming Sassafras
house, where there is an apparent state champion (Silver?) maple tree with
huge, low, horizontal branches such as massive old oaks develop. There are
3 big, young Barn Swallows in a mud nest over the front porch light plus a
now unoccupied Eastern Phoebe nest on the side porch. A Yellow-billed
Cuckoo calls. Serge has 3 doctorates (M.D., Ph.D & something else, I
forget), teaches (at the age of 81) at the Sorbonne. I knew him from my 26
years at Thomas Jefferson University. The Ducketts spend the academic year
in Paris, summer at Sassafras.
Today I learn from Serge that our mutual Jefferson acquaintance, Gary G.
Carpenter, M.D., is the son of actor Gary Cooper. Some of the library
staff used to remark on how much he looked like GC. Now we may know why.
When Dr. Carpenter learned that our daughter, Anne, was diagnosed with
juvenile diabetes, on his own initiative he set a time and met with me in
my semi-office work area to advise on what Anne might be in for. That
showed a concern and kindness I will not forget. Gary was (and is ) a
pediatrician and genetic counselor as well as an accomplished artist
(painter) and glider pilot.
'til the next time. Thanks for listening. 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 ....) |