JANUARY 26-28, 2008, three days when Killdeer are widespread and there are
lots of waterfowl, including over 4,000 Canvasbacks.

SATURDAY, January 26.

On the way down from Philadelphia.  A d.o.r. Great Horned Owl at mile 103.7
of Route 301 off of the W road shoulder.  Legs missing, eyes gone, and eye
sockets sunken, dead for a week or more (?).  5 Red-tailed Hawks.  4
American Kestrels.  Along Route 481: 70 Mourning Doves, 60 Tundra Swans in
a field, and 30 Slate-colored Juncos.

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

NE 5 becoming calm, 41-37 degrees F., overcast, tide low but rising.  Very
little snow cover, there'd been a fall of 1+ inches a few days ago.  Cove
c. 1/6 frozen.  Fields thawing.  Last day of the waterfowl hunting season. 
Water in ditches, fields and the 3 small ponds frozen.  1 House Mouse
caught in the kitchen since last weekend.    

Good waterfowl showing, in order of abundance:  Long-tailed Duck 1120,
Canvasback 810, Canada Goose 800, Ruddy Duck 410, Bufflehead 120, Tundra
Swan 117,  Mute Swan 68, Surf Scoter 45, Red-breasted Merganser 26, Lesser
Scaup 25, Mallard 6, Common Goldeneye 4, and White-winged Scoter 2.  

This is the highest Long-tailed Duck count in several years.  Most of them
are way out in the middle of the Choptank River mouth, where towards the
end of the day they all proceed N in groups, making it easy to estimate
them, even at some distance.  In the 1980s and early 1990s counts of them,
especially in early spring, often ranged from 2000 to as high as 9125 on
March 17, 1995.  

The Mute Swans for some reason are extremely vocal today, cutting loose
with their flatulent-like calls for 10 minutes or more, quite reminiscent
of the "bean scene" in Mel Brooks' movie "Blazing Saddles," but with not
nearly as much richness of texture, pitch, and tonal quality as in that
classic film.  It's enough to make you wish they really were mute.  The
Tundra and Mute Swans are feeding together in perfect harmony, no
aggression at all, the way I usually see them when they are mixed.

Also here today:  4 Horned Grebes, 1 Great Blue Heron, 1 Common Loon, 40
robins, a flicker, 14 Killdeer in Field 1, 1 Cooper's and 1 Sharp-shinned
hawk.    

SUNDAY, January 27.

Rigby:  An Eastern Cottontail at 4:36 A.M.

Cambridge:  4 crepuscular House Sparrows already feeding in the Wawa
service bays at 5:10 A.M., 2 hours before sunrise.  The early bird gets the
jalapeno-stuffed soft pretzel fragment.  

ELLIOTT ISLAND ROAD but also including Kraft Neck Road, Vienna, and the
Route 50 borrow pit N of Vienna.  6 A.M. - 6 P.M.  102 miles by car, 2 on
foot.  

Overcast becoming fair in mid-morning, then clear the rest of the day. 
Tide high to low then high, the low lower than normal.  Winds:  NW 5 or
near calm to start, becoming NW 15-20 most of the day, then diminishing to
10 to 5 to calm after sunset.  34-42 degrees F.  Not much ice except in the
ditches and little marsh ponds.  Pokata and Island creeks open as well as
Savanna Lake.  Some snow left from plowing along the road shoulders
sculpted by the winds and sun (Elliott's answer to Antarctic sastrugi?).

Kraft Neck Road is an absolutely beautiful dirt road several miles long
with vast fields, several additional old fields growing up in young pines
and other trees, forests, and a low, bottomland area that has a few
Prothonotary Warblers in summer.  Not a single house.

85 species, my best day ever here in mid-winter, due to more emphasis on
finding landbirds and a better (and extra 20 miles) driving strategy. 
Wanted to do a marsh walk of a mile or 2 but ran out of time.  The
white-capped-lashed waters made it hard to scope from McCready's Creek;
otherwise 2-4 more waterbird species might have been added.

Highlights:  60 black ducks.  2 male & a female Blue-winged Teal.  2300
Canvasbacks (in Fishing Bay).  14 Common Mergansers (Savanna Lake).  735
Ruddy Ducks.  1 Pied-billed Grebe.  1 Great Egret.  14 Black-crowned Night
Herons.  1 Rough-legged Hawk.  32 Bald Eagles.  16 harriers.  1 Clapper & 9
Virginia rails.  11 Greater & 1 Lesser yellowlegs.  8 Wilson's Snipe.  2
woodcock.  4 Short-eared Owls.  only 1 kingfisher.  8 Downy Woodpeckers.  9
Tree Swallows.  16 chickadees.  9 titmice.  10 Brown-headed Nuthatches.  1
Winter Wren.  7 Hermit Thrushes.  2 catbirds.  20 Boat-tailed Grackles.  35
Swamp Sparrows.  33 House Sparrows (a single group at Elliott village).    
   
GOOD DAY FOR FIELD BIRDS:  18 Wild Turkeys, 76 Killdeer, 120 Mourning
Doves, 2 Horned Larks, 2 bluebirds, 115 American Pipits, 85 Myrtle Warblers
(most feeding in fields) & 24 Eastern Meadowlarks.     
MAMMALS:  1 Raccoon, 3 Eastern Cottontails, 5 Sika Elk (plus a dead one on
the west road shouder just N of Elliott village), and 2 White-tailed Deer.

AUTOMATIC WEAPONS FIRE, continuous, punctuats the entire morning, coming
from somewhere east of Vienna.  According to a local resident there is a
firing range there where one can take their favorite assault weapons and
cut loose.  Fun!

MONDAY, January 28.  Fair, NW 10 m.p.h., 35-43 degrees.  

Rigby's Folly.  12 Killdeer in Field 1.  The Great Blue Heron still
haunting Field 4, where it gets sun, shelter from the wind, and rest, but,
I am guessing, not much to eat, unless it eats corn.

Cambridge waterfront.  11:30 - 12:45 P.M.  Wiped out from yesterday, I just
do sloppy estimates today, concentrate on just enjoying the scene.  But
here they are:  1350 Canvasbacks, 3 male Redheads, 200 Canada Geese, 3
Tundra Swans, 2 Greater (probably more greaters than this present) and 155
Lesser scaup, 1 female Surf Scoter, 16 Buffleheads, 11 Common Goldeneyes,
40 American Wigeon, 1 black duck, and 100 Mallards plus 300 Ring-billed
Gulls.

Egypt Road.  165 Tundra Swans in one field, only 25 of them immatures.

Blackwater N.W.R.  1 - 2:30 P.M.  Water levels low.  

Best of all is the adult Golden Eagle, comes up behind me and lands 100
feet away right on the dike on the S side of Pool 3B, then slowly flies to
the W just N of Wildlife Drive, hunting and unconcerned with my presence. 
A great beauty with a lovely, golden nape, and nice, neat white area at the
base of the tail, no white in the wings, the best view I've ever had of one
in the East.

Also:  8 Tree Swallows coursing over the fields next to Key Wallace Drive,
305 Common Mergansers (in Blackwater River), 48 Tundra Swans, 45 black
ducks, 320 shovelers, 195 pintails, 15 Green-winged Teal, 23 Bald Eagles, 7
harriers, 2 kestrels, 7 Killdeer, only 3 Dunlin, and 20 Savannah Sparrows
concentrated along Key Wallace Drive.

PAINTED TURTLES.  2 sunning on the N side of the E end of Pool 3B, a
favorite spot, but usually when it is much warmer.  If these emerged from
hibernation it was in water of about 35 degrees F. and air temperature of
c. 40 degrees.  Pool 3B is still over 95% frozen with just a little water
showing along the shore edge!

BALD EAGLES.  At the nest shown on the refuge videocamera, that anyone can
watch live at the Visitor Center or via the internet: first egg laid on
Jan. 26!  The Marsh Edge Trail and its adjacent restroom, the latter always
a welcome sight after the erratic, volatile, and unpredictable aftereffects
of pre-dawn Cambridge takeout breakfasts, are closed ... because there's an
active eagle nest nearby in that woods.  The Blackwater annual Bald Eagle
census was done January 10, found 144 Bald Eagles, 33 immature, 75 adults
and 36 undiagnosed plus 1 adult Golden Eagle in the A.M.  Back in the 1980s
the highest number of eagles on this count was c. 50!  This year's is the
highest ever, surpassing the previous high of 140 eagles in 2002.  In
addition there was a roost count in the P.M. finding 53 immature and 67
adult Bald Eagles plus 10 undiagnosed.  I don't know exactly how the
mechanism of these counts proceeds, but you will note that the P.M. roost
count found 20 more immatures than the A.M. count, 8 fewer adults, and 26
fewer unknowns.  

CORN.  Now that the hunting season is over the Olszewskis have scattered c.
1/2 ton of corn kernels over the property at Rigby's Folly and also cast
some into the cove, especially around the dock.  They left me a couple of
hundred additional pounds to distribute through the course of the winter.  

ON FIRE.  At dusk on Sunday on the Elliott Island Road a spectacular line
of approaching fire, occupying 90 degrees of the horizon and 2 miles
distant, stretches nearly unbroken to the southwest, as seen from near
Savanna Lake against the darkening western sky.  Some of the flames shoot
up 15 feet.  Begun early in the day on the north end of Fishing Bay, it
works its way SE with winds of 15-20 m.p.h. behind it.  Ash from burned
marsh grasses drops down diffusely 2 miles from the fires.  There are times
when smoke gets in my eyes, even at this distance.    

What do you suppose the voles, Clapper & Virginia rails, and other
creatures that lived concealed in the grasses will do now?  It will be over
3 months until the grasses regenerate and they can forage and hide in them
again, those that remain. 

Most of us are familiar with the virtues of fires elsewhere.  In the Deep
South burning undergrowth is good for maintaining piney woods habitat for
quail, Bachman's Sparrows, and some other birds, as extolled by Herbert L.
Stoddard in "Memoirs of a Naturalist" (U. of Oklahoma Pr., 1969) and many
others.  In some North Carolina marshes the burns are thought to control
invasive shrubs and retain optimal marsh habitat for Black Rails.  In the
Elliott marshes encroaching Phragmites is the threat; fire does not do
anything to control that.  My family used to regularly burn our fields at
Fort Washington, PA, so they would stay as fields.  We'd also burn off our
asparagus patch each spring.  

One hears that fires are a natural aspect of the marshes of the Chesapeake.
 If so, then why not let natural fires do the job?  Fires are thought to
open up the woodlands making better Fox Squirrel habitat.  Maybe so but
that can't help ground-nesting birds such as Ovenbirds much.  Don't
browsing deer do enough opening up as it is?  As for eliminating tinder
that could fuel future forest fires I can't remember ever seeing a forest
fire on the Delmarva Peninsula.  

"In the late winter, controlled marsh-burning is common here ...  It allows
trappers to more easily access their sets and helps rejuvenate marsh
vegetation.  The columns of dark smoke, which turns whitish if the fire
goes through the pines and brush of marsh hammocks, have a certain awesome
beauty and allure.  However, the fires sometimes get out of control and
kill trees in the hammocks ... and also damage old vegetation from the
previous year, often used in their nests by Black Rails and Saltmarsh
Sharp-tailed Sparrows."  from 'Maryland's Everglades' in  "Birding", April
1999, p. 144.  

The more trees in the hammocks that are killed, and the more their
undergrowth is destroyed, the easier it is for wind to blow over the fewer
remaining trees, favored nesting sites for Bald Eagles, thus opening them
up even more and causing still more blowovers.  The hammocks are already at
great risk from salt water intrusion.  I know of 3 Bald Eagle nest trees
that have been killed by marsh fires, some by so-called controlled burns on
public land.  

I have been doing a slow burn about these marsh fires for many years. 
Several professional biologists and naturalists I know find them appalling.
 I really have to wonder how much, if any, good they do.  But the winter
burns are deeply ingrained into the culture of the lower Eastern Shore.    
        

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 ....)