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

January 19-21, 2008.  3 days of limited activity, not much birding.  Sleep
in each day.  Liz & Harry Armistead.

SATURDAY, January 19.  overcast, 37-42, SE 10, lots of standing water.  No
ice or snow.

55 Tundra Swans (only 5 of them juveniles).  25 Mute Swans.  1 male Common
Goldeneye.  120 Ruddy Ducks.  515 Ring-billed Gulls (4th highest property
count).  a Great Horned Owl calling at 6:31 P.M., low and muted, from Woods
8, which has developed into a dense stand of pines and cedars after being
taken out of cultivation in the late 1960s.   20 Cedar Waxwings.  70
American Robins.  1 Surf Scoter.  1 adult Bald Eagle roosting across the
road from John Swaine's in a large, dead pine.  

Towards dusk I take my first walk and see the ruddies and ring-bills fly
out of Irish Creek then to roost well offshore in the mouth of the Choptank
River.  Most waterbirds leave Irish at the end of the day, presumably to
get out-of-range from night predation.  This is the first time I've noticed
Ring-billed Gulls roosting offshore.      
Today I covered over a low sort of trench, to protect the pipes from
freezing, where the soil has subsided after plumbing work last summer
between the pumphouse and the house.  10 wheelbarrows of dirt dug, perhaps
a ton in toto, transported, dumped, seeded, raked, seeded again, and then
flattened by stepping up and down, back-and-forth on a board. 
White-throated Sparrows and cardinals love the seed but some of it is in
deep and I hope will germinate.  Pennington Grass Seed, part of a 15lb.
bag, supposedly good for shady and sunny areas, too.  

Daughters Anne & Mary and son-in-law Mike join us.  Michael and Nancy
Lytell come for dinner.  Depending on the individual, some of us start off
with scotch (2 kinds), gin, vodka, or (but not and, at least to start)
wine.  Over the course (coarse?) of the evening 7 of us cause 4.5 bottles
of wine to bite the dust.  You do the math.      
SUNDAY, January 20.  clear, 24-30, NW 20+, tide low to high.  Bitter cold
and very windy.

2 A.M.  A smoke alarm event awakens everyone.

2 imm. Bald Eagles.  4 Killdeer in Field 1.  a Ruby-crowned Kinglet forages
on the ground next to the trunk of a big Red Cedar, where it is both in the
lee and in the sun; cute little dude.  1 Fox Sparrow.  1 Great Blue Heron
sitting in the sun out of the wind in the NE corner of Field 4, looking
disconsolate and miserable as only a winter heron can.  Cardinals and
White-throated Sparrows find the corn I put out for the squirrels, as does
a male Red-bellied Woodpecker ... and a squirrel.  

Anne and I do brush work along the west circle of the Olszewski trails,
trimming pine boughs so more sun can reach the ground and also to make
conditions more promising for the young oaks and Black Gum.  We see a
splendid, large, very furry Red Fox there.  Later I see 2 along the
hedgerow between Fields 3 and 4.

12 deer including 2 small bucks in Field 3 (the Clover Field) plus 2 more
in adjacent Field 4.  There's a large, long dead deer on the N side of
Field 4.  1 Eastern Cottontail.  1 Gray Squirrel.      

Temperatures: pumphouse chest high 62, on the floor 47, outside 24, c. 9
A.M.

Dinner with Ben & Frances Weems: a martini, wine, & good food and company.

MONDAY, January 21.  clear, 20-15-10 m.p.h., 20-31 degrees.  Last night 2/3
of the cove froze, the SE 2/3.  This happens in spite of the strong wind,
when the tide becomes very low, then gradually rises.

11 Killdeer in Field 1.  the Great Blue Heron still in Field 4.  1,170
Canada Geese in the cove on the N side.  480 Ruddy Ducks, 3 Common
Goldeneyes, and 35 Canvasbacks up Irish Creek.  The 480 ruddies are the 7th
highest count.  45 Mallards.  call up an Eastern Screech-Owl at 12:19 P.M.,
responds after I do only only 3 of the flat call imitations, 2 of the
tremolo.  My policy is that as soon as an owl responds I immediately stop,
leave it in peace.  See a Carolina Chickadee foraging in a gum ball that is
still attached to the Sweet Gum.

2 Gray Squirrels.  2 deer in Field 4.  

Temperatures: pumphouse chest high 58, on the floor 44, outside 25, c. 9
A.M.  Newly renovated, the pumphouse now seems insulated enough to avoid
having the pipes freeze, as they did 2 winters ago.  

Do another hour's work on the Olszewski trails, again with the
triple-extension saw, with which I can reach branches 15 feet up.

SONG SPARROW DEPRIVATION.  Last year 50-70 Song Sparrows, record numbers
for the property, spent the winter along the sides of the first 700' of the
driveway in front of the house.  Here there is a dense growth of
honeysuckle, Panicum virgatum, Dogbane, asparagus, blackberries, wild rose,
medium-sized Red Mulberries, Red Cedars, Black Locusts, and hawthorns plus
a few Baccharis halimifolia bushes.  This year I have yet to see ONE Song
Sparrow there.  Perhaps last summer's severe drought produced little for
them in the way of seeds.

WOODS 1.  Walk slowly through Woods 1.  This is my first conservation
project, as it were.  At about the age of ten (c. 1950) I asked my
tolerant, supportive parents if we could let the small pines already
established along our N boundary grow into a woods.  Of course they said
yes.  

Almost 60 years later the pines have become a small forest.  Woods 1 now
consists mostly of Loblolly Pines, that are now impressive, sizeable trees,
with a few big oaks and Sweet Gum mixed in, a very few Black Cherries, and
one ancient but small apple tree that has been there all of my life. 

On the other hand, I am the one who had 20 some acres of mature forests
logged 11 years ago.  We had our reasons.  This resulted in a surprising
amount of hostility (I had anticipated some) from SOME of the neighbors,
none of whose houses, one assumes, contain wood products.  After all, did
they think wood grows on trees?  But most neighbors were either silent,
civil, or supportive.  

Be that as it may, for some reason this area of the property, especially
the W and N sides, has huge Trumpet Creeper vines, and somewhat fewer grape
vines.  Some of the Trumpet Creeper vines are massive enough so that I
cannot encompass them with my 2 hands, need another 2-3 inches (or even
more in some cases) to do that.  

The vines wrap around the trees and extend up them 40 feet or more, with
what seems an ominous, latent power that recalls Strangler Figs in Florida,
or outsized, botanical pythons.  Either way, you're getting impressive
constriction.  How's that for purple prose?  But ... I'm not finished.  

Some of the big vines spring out of the ground 6 or 7 feet from the trees,
and hang suspended a couple of feet over the forest floor, until they
contact the trunks several feet above the trees' base, as if they had
become animated when they first began to climb ("The force that through the
green fuse drives the flower" - Dylan Thomas).  This woods has become very
open and park-like.  I'd like there to be more undergrowth.  

There is one, large dead oak, and one large, dead pine.  Find a long-dead
deer here also.  In past years this has been a good place to prospect for
shed antlers.  The sizeable grape vines are less tortuous than the Trumpet
Creeper ones, more like cable.  As a boy I used to climb, hand-over-hand,
up grape vines and into the trees, but with less facility than I could with
the rope in the school gym.  When younger, the Trumpet Creepers sport their
orange, trombone-shaped blossoms, attracting hummingbirds.  

The diagonal cut through this woods, towards its E end, dates back to the
1930s, I think, where there used to be a powerline that stretched from
Anderby Hall Road to Tranquility.  In those days Rigby's Folly did not have
electricity, plumbing, or a phone.  When we got a phone it was a "party
line".  To confound some of the nosey folk who listened in when we were
using the line, my mother and brother, Gordon, would converse in German.  

The cut also served as a passageway for farm vehicles (and trespassers). 
It has become grown over with small Persimmons, Red Cedars, wild roses, and
Loblolly Pines.  The cut still has some deep areas that often become small
vernal pools, favored by Spring Peepers.  The old poles still stand, used
as perches by bluebirds, kestrels, red-tails, or the odd Great Horned Owl. 
 

We change the 3 filters for the geothermal heating/cooling system.

On the way out and home: 45 Mourning Doves and 2 Killdeer in the field next
to the equestrian facility (Ferry Neck's answer to the Parthenon, or
Ozymandias) with a Gray Squirrel on the adjacent roadside, as seen from
Robert Scrimgeour's driveway.

Some of Rigby's daffodils are up 3-4".  On January 10 I heard the  first
singing Tufted Titmouse here in Philadelphia.  Finally, the sun has started
rising earlier, and now sets well after 5.  We've turned the corner.

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 ....)