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FW: Ferry Neck & Dorchester County, February 27-March 1, 2009. Fires, Muskrats, Arabia.

From:

Norm Saunders

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Date:

Mon, 2 Mar 2009 04:24:55 -0500

 

 

From: Harry Armistead [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Sunday, March 01, 2009 8:39 PM
To: Norman Saunders
Subject: Ferry Neck & Dorchester County, February 27-March 1, 2009. Fires,
Muskrats, Arabia.

 

Arabia Forever.  I'd forgotten that ATTACHMENTS are verboten in certain
listserve and interest group settings and included my really off topic
Arabia trip report as an attachment recently.  If anyone would like to see
this please contact me offline at:  harryarmistead at hotmail dot com
Warning: it's more than 12,000 words!

 

Omitted from my Feb. 21 report: a fresh, d.o.r. Northern Water Snake
somewhere in s. Dorchester.  I forget where.

 

RIGBY'S FOLLY/FERRY NECK & DORCHESTER COUNTY, February 27-28 & March 1,
2009.

 

Rigby's Folly:  February 27, Friday. 1 Sharp-shinned Hawk.  Finish disposing
of the Loblolly Pine branches overhanging the Olszewski Trails that I'd cut
last weekend and estimated at c. 100.  Today I counted them and there are
actually 182.  145 Canvasbacks out in Irish Creek.  A Gray Squirrel at the
corn at 6:04 P.M.  John Swaine is disking Fields 5, 6 & 7.    

 

February 28, Saturday.  All locations are in Dorchester County.  Tidal
waters very low, everywhere and all day long.  6:30 A.M. - 6:30 P.M.  133
miles by car.  Windy and chilly day.  Low 40s all day.  Winds NW becoming N
or NE 20-25-15 m.p.h.  Impounded waters high.  Occasional light,
inconsequential rain from 4 P.M. on.  Great time of year for waterfowl: 24
species.    

 

Egypt Road: a pair of Wood Ducks at the Prothonotary Place is only about 10
feet away when I get out of the car on that dangerous curve but they swim
away instead of taking flight.

 

Blackwater N.W.R.  The AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS have increased to 30, still
sitting out in the Blackwater River opposite to the area in between Pools 3
& 5, huddled together so they are surprisingly difficult to count for so
huge a bird.  I count them 7 times and 30 is the best count.  49 Bald Eagles
(includes ones seen from Rt. 335 as well as Shorter's Wharf Road).  2 Horned
Larks and 16 American Pipits.  11 Chipping Sparrows (at intersection of
Egypt Rd. & Key Wallace Drive).  8 imm. White-crowned Sparrows foraging on
the ground under the Visitor Center feeders.  725 Snow & c. 45 Blue Geese,
about 300 of these seen at great distance to the SE of Shorter's Wharf.  5
Forster's Terns.  1 Cackling Goose.

 

Other Blackwater birds:  2 Hooded & 40 Common mergansers, 1 harrier, 2
Red-tailed Hawks, 225 Mallards, 85 pintails, 70 Dunlin, 1 Greater
Yellowlegs, 2 Fish Crows, a female towhee, 20 bluebirds, 120 robins, 2 House
Finches, 2 kestrels, 1 meadowlark.     

 

Low numbers: only 2 shovelers, 1 black duck, 2 Great Blue Herons, 7
Green-winged Teal, 60 Tundra Swans.  1 Gray Squirrel the only mammal seen
all day. 

 

At Blackwater's Shorter's Marsh unit (considerably s. of Shorter's Wharf per
se), in the so-called Robbins area:  145 Tree Swallows (more than I see
sometimes on the May count, which makes me think they're overwintering
birds).  The Trumpeter Swan of dubious provenance, present for years and
through the summers, too, is still here in an adjacent yard area.

 

Liner's Road:  20 more Tree Swallows.

 

Barren Island: 610 Tundra Swans & 2 Bald Eagles.

 

Wroten Island (as seen from Upper Hooper's Island):  110 Tundra Swans.

 

East side of the Honga River s. of Wroten Island:  185 Tundra Swans.

 

Hooper's Island:  The huge Redhead flock has moved from Upper Hooper's I.
(the vicinity of Old Salty's & Creighton Road) to the other side of the
island in the Honga River at Cat Cove off the north end of Middle Hooper's
Island, where I estimate 1,100. In with them are 2 American Wigeon, 120
Lesser Scaup, and 35 Canvasbacks.  Also at Hooper's:  22 American Black
Ducks, 6 Long-tailed Ducks, 18 Surf Scoters, 20 Common Goldeneyes, 65
Buffleheads, 1 Red-breasted & 2 Hooded mergansers, 45 Tundra Swans, 2 Common
Loons, 6 Horned Grebes, 450 Red-winged Blackbirds, 475 starlings, 90
cowbirds, 1 imm. Bald Eagle, and 25 Rock Pigeons (the pigeons hanging around
the Fishing Creek bridge, as usual).  Most of the waterbirds, except those
in the Redhead flock, probably undercounted due to limited time and rough
seas.

 

Swan Harbor:  1 American Oystercatcher (early spring arrival), 115 Dunlin, 1
Sanderling, 2 Bald Eagles, 810 Tundra Swans, 6 American Wigeon (hanging
around the swans for scraps just as they used to do in the old days before
the great SAV dieoff of c. 1970), and  30 robins.  At the Birchmeiers'
feeders these 3 species I see nowhere else today:  2 Brown-headed
Nuthatches, 7 goldfinches, and a Swamp Sparrow.

 

Griffiths Neck Road & the area east of the Transquaking River bridge at
Bestpitch.  Not much:  A Great Horned Owl flies right across the road at
close range and only about 4 feet off of the ground at 3:37 P.M.  1
Sharp-shinned Hawk.  1 Bald Eagle.  7 Green-winged Teal.  4 Horned Larks.  

 

Elliott Island Road.  At dusk 6 Short-eared Owls (possibly 7), 2 of them
hovering high as Rough-legged Hawks do.  2 others check me out at VERY close
range, calling as they fly by, one so close it is about a crab net length's
away, the other about 15 feet distant.  Please take note:  I was NOT using
audio lures.  

 

Other Elliott birds:  2 pairs of Mute Swans, one at the Moorhen Spot, the
other at Gadwall bend, both places where they have bred in previous years.
The only ones I see all day.  They're actually getting scarce.  The
eradication program has been very effective.   

 

2 Black-crowned Night Herons.  70 black ducks.  75 Green-winged Teal,
pigging out in the extensive muddy areas exposed by the very low tidal
waters.  6 wigeon (at Gadwall bend).  20 Gadwalls.  8 pintails. 4
meadowlarks.  Only 3 Great Blue Herons.  2 bluebirds.  8 Bald Eagles.  7
Northern Harriers.  Only 3 Dunlin.  1 Greater and 1 Lesser yellowlegs.  Out
in Fishing Bay: 245 Canvasbacks, 12 Lesser Scaup, and 270 Ruddy Ducks. 

 

GENERAL COMMENTARY ON FEBRUARY 28.  Not too many signs of spring today.  No
early Blue-winged Teal, Osprey, snipe, egrets, phoebe, low numbers of Common
Loon and Horned Grebes, cormorants, Brown Pelicans, Chipping Sparrows or
Tree Swallows that are not overwinterers, few Red-breasted Mergansers, and
only 2 kingfishers.  However, today's total of 1,820 Tundra Swans indicates
they're building up and the Bald Eagle count of 63 is good but not
surprising.  Robins and Common Grackles are widespread today but not in huge
numbers.  When I see Common Grackles in flocks of 100 or more on
roadshoulders and in yards, that to me is a sign of spring.  c.  185
Mourning Doves today.  Missed Boat-tailed Grackle and junco.  Just 6
Killdeer. 

 

March 1, Sunday.  Rigby's Folly.  We don't maintain feeders here because of
our irregular visitation but I've started to dump buckets of corn.  Today
I'd hardly finished with the 3rd bucket, making a circle of corn c. 100
yards around the driveway turning circle - what Liz calls the Ring of Gold -
when I practically had to kick the birds out of the way going back to the
house, an experience that must have been similar to Karen Harris's recent
St. Francis of Assisi moment, except that Rigby has so much shoreline it's
almost like an island and so we are deficient in numbers of landbirds that
someone living in the center of a landmass in the interior of the Delmarva
Peninsula might enjoy.  Nevertheless by the time I make the front porch
there are 30 White-throated Sparrows, 3 cardinals, and a male Red-bellied
Woodpecker at the corn on the ground.  A few minutes later 45 Canada Geese,
30 Ring-billed Gulls, and 4 American Crows are also chowing down.

 

HEADIN' HOME (March 1):  a Cackling Goose in the field at the intersection
of Ferry Neck & Bellevue Roads at 10:36 A.M.  250 Snow Geese, the only group
I see today, in a field adjacent to Rt. 481 1 mile n. of Ruthsburg.  The
slight rain and freezing sleet has started to effect the fields and perhaps
that's the reason I see Horned Larks at 8 spots along Rt. 481, right on the
road shoulders.  Perhaps they're practicing their foraging techniques in
preparation for tonight's and tomorrow's forecast winter storm.  Usually see
them just once or twice, if at all.  21 deer in a field to the west of Rt.
301 at mile 101.5.  

 

FIRES & MARSH BURNING.  It's time for my annual mild rant concerning marsh
burning, a practice widespread in Dorchester County in late winter, and
sometimes irresponsibly when there are winds of 20 m.p.h. or more.  My
concern is for the predictable and annual damage this does to Dorchester's
many marsh hammocks.  The fires race across the marshes and sometimes into
the hammocks, a favorite nesting habitat of Bald Eagles.  Every year
Loblolly Pines are killed in this way.  Already subject to blowovers,
saltwater intrusion, and marsh and land subsidence, the hammocks are
diminished, unintentionally, every year by these fires.  The more dead trees
there are the more open the hammocks are and therefore the more subject they
are to more blowovers, opening them up even more.  It is a vicious cycle and
a different issue altogether from whatever good, bad or indifferent effects
the fires have on the marshes.  I know of 3 Bald Eagle active nest trees
that have been killed by such fires.  Quite aside from the eagle issue, the
larger hammocks are favored by a small suite of nesting landbirds, too,
whose habitat is getting smaller every year due to burning.  I notice
extensive burn damage to Loblolly Pine hammocks today.  Periodically
there'll be a post on MDOSPREY from someone on the western shore wondering
what the columns of smoke they see on the Eastern Shore are.  They're marsh
(and sometimes hammock) fires.  

 

MUSKRAT MANIA.  Thanks to Kate Birchmeier for giving me today a copy of the
32-page program for the annual World Championship Muskrat Skinning Contest
(February 27 & 28) held in conjunction with the 64th annual Outdoor Show at
Golden Hill in s. Dorchester.  The program lists last year's winners in
dozens of events, including Beginners Women's Muskrat Skinning, Senior
Nutria Skinning, International Junior Women's Muskrat Skinning, Muskrat
Cooking, goose, duck, and turkey calling, and Adult Audience Challenge Log
Sawing.  There's also the 2009 Miss Outdoors Contest.  Former show
dedications were to a Junior Trap Setting Champion, the first Female World
Champion Muskrat Skinner, and to various watermen, trappers, seafood
dealers, fur buyers, and local outdoorsmen.  There are photographs of the
contestants in action, lists of auction items, sponsors, contributors,
patrons, and advertisers.  This February 28 I found Muskrat tails on the
east road shoulder west of Langrells Island and Lawrence Drive.  There must
be 50-60 there, perhaps in the lead up to the festival.  I see several
trappers in action today in various marshes checking their sets.  Not making
any judgements here; just reporting what I've seen or read.

 

Best to all. - Harry Armistead, Philadelphia.   

  _____  

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