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

Friday, November 16, 2007.  An American Woodcock does a vertical takeoff
from the side of the driveway at 10:35 P.M.

Saturday, November 17.  46 species.  Liz & Harry Armistead.

44-52 degrees, fair, SW 5-15-5, tide high but not very becoming a lower
than normal low tide.  A cold, breezy day.  

7 Common Loons.  55 Tundra Swans, passing over in migration.  830 Canada
Geese in the cove.  81 Bufflehead incl. 41 in the cove in sight
simultaneously.  3 Hooded Mergansers passing through.  215 Herring Gulls in
a feeding frenzy far out on the Choptank River.  2 Belted Kingfishers (1
shares Mike Davidson's Osprey platform with 2 bluebirds until an American
Crow chases it off and pursues it).  1 Hairy Woodpecker.  460 American
Robins.  200 Cedar Waxwings.  115 starlings.  40 Yellow-rumped Warblers. 
1,950 Red-winged Blackbirds.  1,175 Common Grackles.  200 Brown-headed
Cowbirds.  4 Dark-eyed Juncos (foraging on top of a manure pile).  1 Field
Sparrow.  90 American Goldfinches.  

Good morning flight of passerines 7-9 A.M., including almost all of the
blackbirds, grackles, starlings, cowbirds, robins, goldfinches,
Yellow-rumped Warblers, and waxwings, most passing over high and headed due
south, with Pine Siskins and Rusty Blackbirds a very minor component.

RAPTORS:  20 Turkey & 11 Black vultures, 7 Sharp-shinned, 1 Red-tailed and
1 Red-shouldered hawk, 3 Northern Harriers (1 ad. female, 2 ad. males), and
5 Bald Eagles (2 ad., 3 imm.).  TOTAL:  48.

NON-AVIAN TAXA.  1 Buckeye & 1 Orange Sulphur.  9 deer incl. the leucistic
buck, whose left antler is short and puny, the right one longer but still
not very impressive.  I'm rooting for this litle guy to have a long life. 
2 Gray Squirrels.  

Sunday, November 18.  51 species.

Fair becoming mostly cloudy, winds E5-10, 46-54 degrees, tide lower than
normal.  

Present: Liz, daughter Mary, son-in-law Mike Solomonov, Rami Amar, visiting
from Israel, and me.

RAPTORS.  I conduct a hawk count from the dock most of the day, especially
from 9:30 A.M. - 2 P.M., with vigorous scanning and scopework that is
gratifyingly productive.  Most of the totals below probably err on the side
of being conservative, might reasonably be increased by 1 or 2 birds.  10
species.

Turkey Vulture 42.  Black Vulture 9.  Sharp-shinned Hawk 13.  Cooper's Hawk
3.  Red-tailed Hawk 13.  Red-shouldered Hawk 3 (2 imm., 1 ad.).  Northern
Harrier 7 (2nd highest).  Osprey 2 (1, an imm., catches a nice White Perch
only c. 100 feet from the dock; nice going, junior!).  Bald Eagle 8 (ties
3rd highest; 4 ad., 4 imm.).  Golden Eagle 1 juvie (7th record).  TOTAL:
101.  

Birds not seen yesterday:  1 Great Egret (new property late date; previous
was Nov. 5).  8 Long-tailed Ducks.  3 Ruby-crowned Kinglets.  4 Carolina
Chickadees.  1 Royal Tern, an imm.  3 Great Black-backed Gulls.  2 Horned
Larks, infrequently seen here.  3 Red-breasted Nuthatches.  (plus the
Cooper's Hawks, Ospreys & Golden Eagle).

Also today:  14 Common Loons (1 of them dealing with a Hogchoker).  6
Tundra Swans in migration (groups of 6 & 2).  8 American Black Ducks.  2
Hooded Mergansers passing through in migration.  3 Forster's Terns (birds
obtain minnows in the cove both today and yesterday).  1,600 Red-winged
Blackbirds.  2,100 Common Grackles.  As yesterday, today's blackbird flocks
pass over high headed south.

With one Canada Goose flock are 2 very small geese, not much bigger than
Mallards, but they are not the right proportions to be Cackling Geese. 
Among other attributes, the necks are too long.  Today the CG flock in the
cove builds slowly to over 1,230.  

NON-AVIAN TAXA:  Butterflies - 2 Monarchs abd 2 Orange Sulphurs.  14 deer. 
1 l'il squirreleepoo.    

GOOD FOLIAGE.  Eastern shore fall colors are rather muted compared with the
glorious maples of New England and the ridges and mountains elsewhere. 
This weekend they're pretty good here, lots of reds from the Sweet Gums and
maples here, brighter than I'm used to seeing.

FAQ, especially from lay persons.  "Isn't it getting late for Ospreys?" 
Somewhat.  But at the Little Creek, VA, Christmas Bird Count that includes
some of Virginia Beach they have been found, I believe, for c. 15 straight
years, sometimes 2 or even 3 birds.  I see some in November at Rigby every
year.

JANE ALEXANDER BOOK.  "Command performance: an actress in the theater of
politics" (Da Capo Press, 2000, 335pp.).  I happened upon a copy discarded
by Lovett Library.  Chronicles her courageous, articulate, and reasonable
defense of the arts when she was head of the National Endowment for the
Arts.  In it she mentions how important birding is in her life.  She once
saw 20 warbler species in one day in Rock Creek Park, mentions Townsend's
and MacGillivray's warblers and Golden Eagles seen on a rafting trip in
Idaho.  Nominated for an Oscar 4 times.  Very well-written book, in my
humble.

GOOD STUFF IN THE CURRENT ISSUE OF "the AUK".  That would be vol. 124, no.
4, October 2007, which arrived here last Friday.

Sue Rice is the manager of the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife
Refuge.  She rather frequently hangs out, on her own time, at the songbird
banding station and the hawkwatch platform at Kiptopeke, Virginia.  How
many refuge managers do you know who do this sort of thing?  She's the only
one I've ever known who does.

Susan M. Rice, Jaime A. Collazo, Matthew W. Alldredge, Brian A. Harrington,
and Allen R. Lewis.  "Local annual survival and seasonal residency rates of
Semipalmated Sandpipers (Calidris pusilla) in Puerto Rico."  pp. 1397-1406.
 578 were color-banded 1989-1992 in SW Puerto Rico.  This area was shown to
be important for wintering SESAs.  Their average length of stay here was
110 days.

Cover painting by Julie Zickefoose is of the Coastal Plain race of the
Swamp Sparrow that several ornithologists in our region have been or are
still concerned with, including Sam Droege, Sarah Warner, and others.  cf.:
Russell Greenberg, Peter P. Marra, and Matthew J. Wooller.  "Stable-isotope
(C, N, H) analyses help locate the winter range of the Coastal Plain Swamp
Sparrow (Melospiza georgiana nigrescens)".  pp. 1137-1148.  

These birds, not described as a subspecies until 1951, breed in small
numbers in the MD part of Chesapeake Bay, in bigger numbers on Delaware
Bay, along coastal NJ to the Hudson River estuary in NJ & NY, and in a
small area on the west side of the Chesapeake up a few tidal rivers in
Virginia.  These investigators determined their winter range to be in SE
coastal VA, and in east and central coastal NC.

It used to be that "the Auk" in fairly recent years comprised just over
1,000 pages per year, more than "the Wilson bulletin" (now called "the
Wilson journal of ornithology") and "the Condor."  With this issue it is
1,502 pages in 2007, not including the contents pages appended in no. 4 for
all four 2007 issues and the interesting advertising.  

Membership in the American Ornithologists' Union includes a subscription to
the quarterly "the Auk".  Members also receive the A.O.U. Ornithological
Monographs, of which there are usually 2-3 per year.  North American
members receive in addition the bi-monthly "Ornithological newsletter". 
Membership is now $80/year, not at all exorbitant for a professional
organization.  Student memberships are $26, as are memberships in
non-industrialized countries.  I am glad I joined as a life member in the
late 1960s for about double the now $80 annual fee.  A life membership is
now $2,400.  The endowment of the A.O.U. has increased enormously in the
past decade or so.  

Most of the articles are way over my head, full of technical statistical,
biochemical, mathematical, and physics analyses, but I find a lot of
interest in the book reviews, some of the letters, the obituaries, the
abstracts of many of the articles, and a recurring feature known as "100
years ago in the A.O.U."  Membership information should go to:  Frank B.
Gill, P. O. Box 428, Rushland, PA 18956.  aoutreasurer at aou dot org 

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 ....)