From: Harry Armistead [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 12:14 PM
To: Norman Saunders
Subject: Blackwater refuge, Ferry Neck, visits to 3 western shore venues,
March 28-31, 2009.

 

MARCH 28-31, 2009, Blackwater N.W.R., Ferry Neck & several western shore
localities.

 

March 28, Saturday.  Visit at artist John ("Bud") W. Taylor's charming place
at Mayo, Anne Arundel County, 2-5 P.M.  We see 24 Northern Gannets and 160
Surf Scoters in the distance out on Chesapeake Bay and 2 Ospreys.  Bud's
place is on Big Pond.  By looking across this tidal pond one has good views
of the Bay.  His studio, in a detached building, is full of his paintings,
many of them resplendent with the golden glow of autumn, especially his
grassy marsh scenes with palustrine birds shown in situ.  Bud's depredations
in London, Washington, and other book stores have been considerable.  We
spend most of the time enjoying his fine book collection.  Within minutes of
our arrival he'd piled our laps high with books, while other stacks of them
materialized on the floor around us.  His collection is especially strong
with titles by the great illustrators and artists:  Fuertes, Francis Lee
Jaques, Liljefors, Jonsson, Allan Brooks, Richard E. Bishop, Sutton,
Thorburn, Tunnicliffe, Chloe Talbot Kelly, D. M. Reid Henry, G. E. Lodge,
and many others.  Offhandly I mention that I've never seen Cave's Birds of
the Sudan.  Within seconds Bud took care of that lacuna in my bibliographic
life.  During the course of this delightful afternoon Bud tells of how he
first came to meet Brooke Meanley, who became his close friend.  This
happened when Bud went to see the Bachman's Warbler that showed up in 1954
(May 8-June 2) and 1958 (May 10-31) at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.  Brooke was
there, I think, when Bud went during the 1958 episode.  Bud's set of the
4-volume Birds of California by Dawson formerly belonged to the great
National Geographic Society artist Walter Alois Weber.  Bud's own art is
featured in Birds of the Chesapeake Bay: with natural histories and journal
notes by the artist (1992) as well as Chesapeake spring (1998), both
published by Johns Hopkins University Press.   

 

George W. Adams, 1944-2009.  Liz and I visited Gallery 1683 on Main Street,
Annapolis, 5-8 P.M. for a memorial exhibition of the extraordinary
photographs of George Adams.  George died early in March.  Many of his
splendid photographs are of marsh scenes, especially in the Blackwater
refuge area and other Dorchester County locales.  Today there are also
photographs of his here on display taken in Havana and Assisi.  A gifted
person, he was adept at mastering challenging technical situations,
restoration, learned with surprising rapidity how to sail large craft with
competence, and enjoyed other talents I had not known of until today.  The
gallery is packed today with fine folks, one of whom, Helen Smith, in one of
those degrees of separation coincidences, used to teach our children in the
vertical 1-3 grade class at Germantown Friends School in Philadelphia.  She
was George Adams' aunt.       

 

On the way over to the Eastern Shore and Rigby's Folly:  a Muskrat scurries
across the road, just barely avoiding getting hit, at the intersection of
Routes 322 and 33 at Easton, 8:57 P.M.  On the way in our driveway Spring
Peepers are in good voice from Woods 4 and The Pond.  There's been 1.5" of
rain recently, I hear.  The ground is soaked and soft for the first time in
many weeks.  The March 31 Philadelphia Inquirer says "this has been one of
the driest first three months in 137 years of record-keeping" (p. B1).
Rainfall's been below normal in every county in PA, NJ, DE and MD.  At 9:30
P.M. at Rigby it's 52, overcast, and calm.

 

March 29, Sunday.  A 5 turtle day.  Blackwater N.W.R. 7:30 A.M. - 12:30 P.M.
Fog, mist and visibility < 100 yards to start but within minutes starts to
clear.  50-65, partly sunny to fair, SW 15-20.  All water levels very high.
Tucker Dalton, Steve Doehler & Larry Hush join me for the refuge birdwalk.
1 Peregrine Falcon, 2 Glossy Ibis, 27 American White Pelicans (1 at Sewards,
the others opposite Pool 3), 200 Snow Geese, 320 Green-winged & 4
Blue-winged teal, 2 Great Egrets, 6 Wood and 12 black ducks, 12 pintails, 10
shovelers, 25 Bald Eagles, 2 harriers, 1 male kestrel, 6 Killdeer, 30
Greater & 1 Lesser yellowlegs, 30 Dunlin, 2 Pileated Woodpeckers, 6
Forster's Terns, 3 meadowlarks, 8 Ospreys (2 with fish), 0 kingfishers.
Only 1 Tundra Swan foraging in a field, perhaps a sick bird.  Frogs are
calling, esp. Southern Leopard Frogs but also a few New Jersey Chorus Frogs
and Spring Peepers.  TURTLES: 2 Mud Turtles (captured), a big Snapping
Turtle, 6 Painted Turtles, and 2 Red-bellied Sliders.  On the way out
there's a Woodchuck along the side of Egypt Road.

 

Royal Oak.  A Mourning Cloak.  An Eastern Cottontail at 6:14 A.M.  A
roadkill Gray Squirrel. 

 

Rigby's Folly:  Nice enough most of the time (clear becoming fair, 49-72,
SW2@ 20) but a sudden turn at 6 P.M. produces rain, overcast skies, and NW
winds of 20-25 m.p.h. just when the tide is highest.  1 Eastern Phoebe, 2
Great Egrets, 3 Laughing Gulls, 3 Double-crested Cormorants (the latter 3
species long-overdue first-of-the-year birds here), 1 Tree Swallow, 6 Horned
Grebes, 7 Ospreys, 3 Bald Eagles, 1 Pine Warbler.  I hear (and see) a Common
Loon give its yodel call (heard infrequently here) 5 times, the wail call
once.  1 Hairy Woodpecker.  40 Fish Crows.  1 Diamondback Terrapin.  1
Spring Azure.  14 deer, 1 Muskrat, 1 Gray Squirrel, 1 cottontail.  2 adult
male Northern Harriers in migration, together.

 

March 30, Monday.  Rigby's Folly.  Overcast, temps. In the 50s, NW 25
m.p.h., the Choptank River mouth a seething mass of whitecaps.  Considering
these conditions I'm amazed to see 2 Ospreys with fish.  Have yet to see a
Northern Gannet here this year.  5 twitterkins (Dark-eyed Juncos).  An ad.
female Northern Harrier.  2 Black Vultures flying in tandem.  In Field 4
seven hen Wild Turkeys accompanied by a displaying tom, the latter the
epitome of pomposity, struttin" and stridin', stylin' and profilin'.  Around
the phone pole in Field 4 are a few withered Pokeberries from last year in
which there are 2 bluebirds, a male Pine Warbler, and the season's first 2
Chipping Sparrows, a suite of birds seen fairly frequently in mid-winter at
ground level or so.  1 Orange Sulphur.  9 deer.  MESSIN' AROUND: at the head
of the cove, way up it and hard to see unless one is right there, float 2
decoys, a hen Mallard and a male Bufflehead, that I retrieve.  Nice
Bufflehead decoy; even has some of the bluish gloss on its head.  Along the
Olszewski Trails I make 99 cuttings, all but c. 12 of branches, some of
these with a larger girth than the few trees cut, and I dispose of them back
off of the trails.  Here I find 2 Spotted Turtles mating.  Several of the 12
holes on the trails I filled a week ago have been dug up, I am betting by
Raccoons who were thinking they'd discovered caches of turtle eggs.        

 

March 31, Tuesday, c. 10 A.M. - 3 P.M.  Fort Smallwood Park near Pasadena in
extreme NE Anne Arundel County.  Only my 3rd visit ever here.  Below is what
I saw, not the official count, for which see Sue Ricciardi's report on
MDOSPREY.  Sue, Lynn Davidson, Hal Wierenga, et al.  Sunny, cool, winds
light from N or NE.  A male Purple Martin, a Red-throated Loon Hal spotted,
small flights of Tree Swallows, cowbirds, Double-crested Cormorants, and
Common Loons.  51 Gadwalls in the pond along with 30+ turtles basking in the
sun, mostly Painted Turtles, and a Muskrat.  A dozen or so Horned Grebes,
some in pretty advanced breeding plumage.  4 Green-winged Teal.  Buffleheads
offshore.  7-8 Bonaparte's Gulls.  A Killdeer nesting on a nearby roof top.
An Eastern Phoebe on a rock as we leave.  A few Red-shouldered,
Sharp-shinned, Cooper's & Red-tailed hawks.  3-4 Bald Eagles.  Ospreys
probably the commonest raptor (except for Turkey Vulture), many of them
carrying fish.  A few Black Vultures.  A kestrel.  Quite a few folks angling
but not seeming to catch anything. 

 

MISCELLANEOUS BROWSINGS THIS WEEKEND.  1: In Andrew Wyeth's autobiography
there's paintings of a roadkill Gray Squirrel, by itself in a work called
"Grey [sic] Squirrel", and also incorporated into another painting, "Fast
Lane".  It's interesting that he retained both paintings in his and Betsy
Wyeth's private collection, evidently prizing them enough so he chose not to
sell them.  Blood from the actual squirrel was incorporated into the
materials he used to make the paintings. It's gratifying that America's most
celebrated and honored artist chose to describe my favorite animal as
"beautiful."  2: Come across the phrase "indomitable obstinacy" in Richard
Henry Dana's Two years before the mast.  I always thought indomitable was
associated with virtues, but, come to think of it, stubbornness and
obstinacy definitely have their valued place in life, too.  If a squirrel
were literate and wrote a book with that title then it would mean 2 straight
years of a banner acorn and nut crop.  In my Philadelphia backyard Gray
Squirrels spend more than "2 years before the mast" I cast out for them:
corn, sunflowers, the occasional pecan, etc.  

 

Best to all. - Harry Armistead, Philadelphia.    

 

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