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 23, 2007.  Present only 2:45-5:30 P.M.  Clear, 44-43, NW
15+, tide a low high tide.  Has dried out some since last weekend.

1 Cackling Goose.  85 American Robins.  1 Sharp-shinned Hawk.  2 Red-tailed
Hawks.  1 Savannah Sparrow in the middle of Field 1.  There is a
substantial flight of Canada Geese taking place.  Circa 45 flocks come in,
many of them high and out of the north.  

DEER.  32 as follows:  25 in Field 4 including 3 small bucks, a fawn, and a
large 7-point buck (3 points of the left antler, 4 on the right), the rest
does.  In Field 2 there is a large 7-point buck (4 point of the left
antler, 3 on the right).  In Field 1 six deer including the leucistic buck
and one doe that suddenly appears near me (I am the one that is startled)
in the middle of the field from out of nowhere at a distance of 32 paces. 
Five additional deer are not counted, seen on the Wheatleys' lawn, may have
later joined the 25 in Field 4.

Saturday, November 24.  Clear, NE5 becoming calm most of the day, 33-43-39,
very low tide, a lot of frost, a little ice in some parts of the fields. 
Cold.  Big ole 'coon shamblin' 'cross Field 1 in broad daylight at close
range, unconcerned..  

5 female Hooded Mergansers.  1 Cackling Goose.  5 American Black Ducks.  8
Long-tailed Ducks.  145 Surf Scoters.  1 Hairy Woodpecker.  1 Northern
Gannet, probably 4 miles away.  2 Red-breasted Mergansers.  65 Tundra Swans
migrating through.  115 Buffleheads.  1 adult female Sharp-shinned Hawk.  3
Bald Eagles.  6 Common Loons.  650 Common Grackles.  375 Red-winged
Blackbirds.  

AIN'T MISBEHAVIN', some vignettes of behavior.  See a Yellow-rumped Wabler
chase a bluebird.  Closby a Common Loon catches a large Hogchoker, perhaps
6" long, 4" wide, fusses with it for several minutes as it wiggles, twice
it escapes and is caught again, then finally swallows it surprisingly fast.
 2 other loons are nearby and a few minutes later one (the same one?)
catches a considerably smaller Hogchoker, but still 4-5" long.  These are
wide, flounder-like fishes ringed with spines.  Quite a swallow to choke
down but a favorite loon prey item.  See a sub-adult Bald Eagle (white head
and tail but the tail with a not-very-cleanly-demarcated black terminal
band) flying and circling for minutes on end a mile or so offshore with a
small fish, maybe 8" long, that it is eating in mid-air.  Once a chunk of
the fish becomes disengaged and plummets into the Choptank River.  

The last 2 hours of daylight I sit out at Lucy Point doing extensive
scopework - how most of today's waterbirds are found.  Doze off several
times in the warm sun.  I wake up from one nap because of an increasingly
loud Canada Goose and find a flock of 30 swimming by only c. 150 feet from
the shore, with the Cackling Goose in with them, 4:15 P.M., the 2nd
sighting of it today, and a great view, assuming it is the same one seen
this morning and yesterday (not necessarily the case).  

2 Gray Squirrels, but surprisingly, not one deer today.  Start of the
shotgun season for deer. 

Today Jimmy, Bruce, and Tom Olszewski drop by and give us another basket of
apples, a poinsettia for Liz, and 2 coolers full of fresh venison.  

The pineapple sages (a salvia?) in Liz's planters, reticent all year, are
finally loaded with red blossoms now, even after the recent frost ond cold.

Sunday, November 25.  Liz sees 2 flickers, 3 Downy Woodpeckers, a
Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and 4 Gray Squirrels while I'm at Blackwater.  I see
an Orange Sulphur on returning.

Sunday, November 25.  Blackwater N.W.R.  7:30 A.M. - 12:15 P.M.  Mostly
overcast, calm, 38-48 degrees, all water levels low.  67 species.

14 on birdwalk, although some, including Steve Ford and Greg Inskip, are
there incidentally and make cameo appearances with us.  Others include
Jennifer & Bob Elmer, Levin Willey, Gordon Jennings, Arnold Simon, and Kate
Murphy.  This is perhaps the most industrious group of any of the walks
I've led here over 23 years, with most observers actively looking on their
own and not relying on me to find everything.  However, we do not locate
the Lark Sparrow although there are rumors it is seen today.

only 1 Snow & 4 Blue geese, the several thousand on hand, mostly white
birds, having left earlier to fly north to agricultural fields.  95 Tundra
Swans coming in from the north directly overhead ... beautiful, impressive.
 1 CACKLING GOOSE, well seen by all at moderate range in flight.  1
shoveler & 1 pintail, both males.  275 Green-winged Teal, flushed several
times by eagles; once 2 Bald Eagles double-team a teal, to no effect.  2
female Hooded Mergansers.  1 Ruddy Duck.  5 AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS, have
been present for some time.  1 Double-crested Cormorant.  

22 Bald Eagles.  4 Northern Harriers.  1 imm. Cooper's Hawk.  1 imm.
Red-shouldered Hawk.  2 American Kestrels.  8 Killdeer.  10 Greater
Yellowlegs.  20 Forster's Terns.  6 woodpecker species (missed only
Red-headed).   35 Tree Swallows (scanned carefully for possible Cave
Swallows).  1 Red-breasted Nuthatch.  1 Brown Creeper.  2 Marsh Wrens.  4
Ruby-crowned & 2 Golden-crowned kinglets.  2 Hermit Thrushes.  6 Eastern
Meadowlarks.  35 American Goldfinches.  

Most of today's raptors are perched, reluctant to fly in the calm air.

Levin saw a Cattle Egret here yesterday, a late date.

OFF TOPIC (You have been warned):

IN THE EVENIN' BY THE MOONLIGHT.

GOOD EVENING 1.

Black Friday after sunset.  Dozed off and on in the living room, part from
fatigue, part from hot chocolate with rum, while listening to Berlioz's
'Symphonie Fantastique', a piece that would fit well with midnight on any
Halloween.  Jack Nicholson-Stephen King music, a madcap, bushy-tailed
composition.  

Starts off with "dreams and passions", next is "a ball" with a spirited
waltz, then segues into a lyric "scene in the fields" with an extended,
exquisitely-resolved melody that goes on for over 17 minutes.  Then it is
"the march to the scaffold", and finally, "the witches' sabbath", as the
full moon hoves over Rigby, bright enough so I bet I could go out into the
middle of the Big Field and read "Science Citation Index" by moonlight,
read the fine print.  

But in the living room we're hearing a malevolent-sounding oboe, creepy
pizzicato (accompanies a beheading), low register, brooding horns as if a
Tyrannosaurus rex is stomping towards you in slo-mo, and then the chilling
chimes.  All the while the aroma of stewing beef comes in all the way from
the other end of the house.  A stimulating suite of sensations this
evening.   

GOOD EVENING 2.  Saturday.  Soon after sunset looking east from Lucy Point
the full moon rises directly over the house.  A little later it is
pleasant, to say the least, to sit in the Living Room by the fire with my
mother's portrait by Ruth Starr Rose looking down on us, while I read a
great book (David Halberstam's "The Coldest Winter"), nurse along a martini
(Bombay Sapphire Gin, 3 olives, 6:1 ratio)) while occasional great flocks
of swans pass over the house, their incomparably beautiful calls easily
heard over the crackling of the blazing Black Locust logs.  

Ruth Starr Rose was a close friend of my parents.  Much of her art
concerned African American life.  Once in the early 1950s in March we by
chance were staying in the same hotel in Bridgeton, New Jersey, where we
had all come to lodge in order to see the immense Greater Snow Goose dusk
spectacle nearby at Fortescue on Delaware Bay.  RSR had a place up on the
Wye River I dimly remember from my youth.

'In the evenin' by the moonlight', as sung by the inimitable Nina Simone:  

" ... We used to sit around the fireplace
'til the cornbead it was done ...

... Then my daddy would take his fiddle down
That hung upon the wall
While the silvery moon was shinin'
Clear and bright.
How the old folks would enjoy it.
They would sit all night and listen
As we sang in the evenin'
By the moonlight.  Oh, Yeah!"

I just played Nina for the first time in about 30 years on the RCA Victor
("his master's voice") LP player ("new orthophonic high fidelity") my
parents gave me as a high school graduation present in 1958.  Cost about
$100 then.  The player hasn't been played in about 30 years, either,
abandoned, gathering dust in the cellar.  Two years in the Army being
slammed in and out of my narrow locker, and, after all these 49 years the
thing still works. 

Nina sings this slow, cornpone, traditional song, you wonder why on earth
she picked this one, then quickens the tempo, catches us all by surprise,
sings it faster, then does a great, complex, piano improvisation for
several minutes, full of thundering changes and Bach riffs.  Brilliant. 
Her "Oh, yeahs" in this cut ... no one says or sings "Oh, Yeah" with her
authority. 

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 ....)