From: Harry Armistead [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 6:46 PM
To: Norman Saunders
Subject: Ferry Neck, Talbot County, April 10-14, 2009.

 

FERRY NECK/RIGBY'S FOLLY, April 10-14, 2009:

            FRIDAY, APRIL 10.  3:30 P.M. until dark.  Fair becoming mostly
overcast, SW 5 and diminishing, 73-66, warm and calmish.  An imm. Bald Eagle
(2nd year?) right over the ghastly sprawl of Middletown, DE (the bypass to
this running from Route 1 to Route 301 is supposed to BEGIN in 2012).  A
Hooded Merganser over milepost 111 of Route 301, where I've never seen any
previously.  A Sharp-shinned Hawk at mile 106.5.  At the small pond N. of
Rts. 309 X 481 are 39 Green-winged & 2 Blue-winged teal, 1 Killdeer and a
kestrel.  40 Wild Turkeys S. of Route 33 outside of St. Michaels near
intersection with Rt. 329.  

            AT RIGBY'S FOLLY.  Out in the Choptank River mouth: 1,870 Surf
Scoters, 3 Northern Gannets (first of the year . finally), 80 Buffleheads, 9
Horned Grebes, 6 Common Loons.  Also at the old place: 1 Wild Turkey, a
Sharp-shinned Hawk, 1 ad. Bald Eagle, 1 male Purple Martin, 1 Tree Swallow,
1 kestrel, 1 Snowy Egret, 5 Greater Yellowlegs, 4 House Finches, and 2 Wood
Ducks.  

            A Woodchuck, seldom seen here anymore, right in the yard.  5
deer plus 11 at Holland Point as seen from Lucy Point.  1 Painted Turtle in
Woods 4.  7 Diamondback Terrapin in the cove.  Unbelievable but no
Red-breasted Mergansers or Lesser Scaup seen these 5 days.  Cut brush around
Lucy Point affording a better broad water view from our distant yard.  Tyler
Contracting Company has bulldozed 2 long strips on the W. side of Field 1 to
use as a staging area for dumping rocks for rip rap repair.      

            SATURDAY, APRIL 11.  Overcast, rain in A.M., NW 10-25, 52-58,
clearing c. 5:30 P.M. with wind dropping to <5.  7 Wild Turkeys in Field 1.
See a Bald Eagle sail by from the limited view through the window as I lie
in bed before getting up.  1,730 Surf Scoters.  2 Northern Gannets.  2
Forster's Terns.  45 Herring Gulls.  29 Brown-headed Cowbirds foraging in a
group in Field 1.  George hears a Great Horned Owl.  35.  See the Woodchuck
again.  

            Clean dock in the aftermath from a month ago of c. 160
Ring-billed Gulls roosting there.  Fill a 30-gallon bag with trash that has
accumulated at the head of the cove.  Clear more brush for the view out past
Lucy Point.  35 deer.  Son, George, daughters Mary and Anne. Son-in-law Mike
Solomonov, and Anne's friend, Derek Ayres, arrive.

            New PHOEBE SNETSINGER BIOGRAPHY.  In spite of these activities I
actually spend most of the day, especially during the rains, reading Life
list: a woman's quest for the world's most amazing birds by Olivia Gentile
(Bloomsbury USA, 2009, 345pp., hardbound, $26.00).  Couldn't put it down.
The story of the remarkable Phoebe Snetsinger (1931-1999) who achieved the
world's biggest lifelist, 8,674 of the 10,223 species recognized at the time
of her death (in a car accident in Madagascar), or 84.8%.  An extraordinary
story of very bright woman (Phi Beta Kappa, Swarthmore College, fluent in
German), the stress her quest caused her family and herself, her adventures
and sometimes tragic misadventures, this book should be compelling reading
for anyone interested in family dynamics, bird listing, the development of
the feminist movement, travel, and the bird tourism business.  

            SUNDAY, April 12, Easter Sunday.  Clear, 47-57, NW 20 - <5.
Mostly a day of harmless family activities, especially eating.  George makes
2 findings that are new: a House Wren (earliest record here, the previous
earliest - April 21) and he hears a Northern Mockingbird imitating a
White-breasted Nuthatch, new to the mocker yard imitation list.  Liz and I
see an ad. male Sharp-shinned and an ad. male Cooper's hawk.  1 Barn
Swallow.  A Black Vulture flies in low and lands on the blind where they
have nested in previous years, on the W. side of Field 1, accompanied by its
presumed mate.  1 Forster's Tern.  

            NON-AVIAN TAXA:  We all set a new Rigby record with 6 Spotted
Turtles, including 2 little tykes about the size of 50-cent pieces. 2 deer
(only), 2 Gray Squirrels, an Eastern Cottontail (a true Easter bunny), 1
Spring Azure, and 3 Orange Sulphurs.  Derek takes several shots of us.  One
will be used in next winter's family holiday letter, to be a 2fer since we
didn't send one last year. 

            MONDAY, April 13.  Overcast, high ceiling, 44-53, NW 5 shifting
around to NNW, W, then SW, a cool, even cold, day, mostly.  Rain after
sunset.  1,310 Surf Scoters, 118 Double-crested Cormorants (3rd highest
property count), 4 Long-tailed Ducks, 1 Northern Gannet, 4 female Common
Goldeneyes, 1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet (by George), 1 adult Bonaparte's Gull, 7
Common Loons, 6 Horned Grebes, 4 Bald Eagles, 65 Buffleheads, 1 Barn
Swallow, 40 Herring Gulls, 1 Cooper's Hawk, 1 Wild Turkey, 1 unID'd egret, 3
House Finches, and 10 Ospreys (in sight simultaneously).  7 Canada Geese are
the highest total here for this 5-day period.  MAMMALS: a Woodchuck in Field
1 (bigger than the one[s?] seen in the yard in the past few days), 1 Eastern
Cottontail, 4 deer, 4 gray Squirrels. 

            BIG RED CEDAR (Juniperus virginiana).  Today, for the first
time, I measure our biggest cedar.  Its circumference chest-high is 131
inches (= 10 feet, 11 inches).  Greenbrier (a.k.a. catbrier, Smilax)
festoons most of its circumference.  Even after removing some of this,
maneuvering around the trunk to do the measuring is a bit like being
keelhauled.  

            Much of the lower portion of this tree is hollow.  At least once
a Raccoon has lived inside it.  It has 4 separate trunks, which branch off
at a height of 7 feet or so: a huge main trunk, 2 other large ones, and a
smaller trunk.  A quick Google search reveals there is a Red Cedar in
Montgomery County, MD, with a girth of 150 inches.  

            Our tree is located on the S. side of the driveway opposite
Field 4 near the Waterthrush Pond.  Here it has been somewhat protected from
gales, storms, hurricanes, and other high wind events over the decades.
Higher neighboring trees shield it from lightning.  Many of our other Red
Cedars have blown down through the years, their dense growths of needles
acting like a sail.  Often these blowovers have been in the colder months,
since "March" winds can occur from January well into April.  

            This cedar has also survived my discharge into it of a 12-gauge
shotgun to dispatch a Raccoon suspected of having torn a hole in the
guestroom roof.  Raccoon winter roof breakins occurred 5 years in a row, at
the exact same peak of the roof.  Once we found a mother Raccoon and three
young in the guestroom closet.  With repairing these small, damaged areas of
roof it isn't so much the cost of repair as getting someone to do such a
small job that is the real pain the neck.  Life in the country.  

            TUESDAY, April 14.  Overcast, NE 5-10, steady rain since before
midnight, 46 degrees F., ditches, vernal pools, and ponds brimming over.
Considerable "current" in the ditches.  Tremendous amount of water in the
fields and woods.  11 Wild Turkeys in Field 4, 3 more at Frog Hollow, plus
an American Kestrel on top of the pole in Field 4.

            HEADIN' HOME.  9 Greater Yellowlegs in a field pool to the NW of
Rt. 309 & N. of Cordova (near Blades Road).  Two Ospreys and a Bald Eagle
tangle with each other over the communications tower just NW of the
intersection of Rts. 404 X 309.  Ospreys have nested on the top of this
tower for several years.  Interesting because this is a good ways from the
nearest big open water, which would be in this case the upper Tuckahoe
Creek.  Apparently the eagle kleptoparasitized one of the Ospreys because a
small fish drops out of the sky and almost hits our windshield.  Just N. of
Rts. 309 X 481 there are 9 Green-winged Teal and 9 Wilson's Snipe in the
vicinity of the little low wet area and temporary pond.  Three kestrels seen
along Route 481.  On Rt. 301 at mile 98.3 there are 3 Snow and 1 Blue goose.
At least 2 of the snows seem to be cripples, these all foraging adjacent to
a pit with blue-green waters east of the highway. 

            The VAGARIES OF ESTMATING SCOTER NUMBERS.  Bound to be variation
from day to day due to: visibility, wind (= wave action), the movements of
the birds (including whether or not they are actively diving), disturbance
(or lack of it) by boaters, the extent (if any) of their being backlit and
in the sun glint, and my own mental set at the time.  I try to "count" them
by 10s, thus with the April 10 estimate of 1,870 I "counted" to 187.  When
large numbers of them flush, the sound of the males' wings is like the
distant tinkling of hundreds of musical bells, one of the great sounds of
Chesapeake Bay.   

            Best to all. - Harry Armistead, Philadelphia. 

 

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