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Ferry Neck, June 7-10, 2009.

From:

Harry Armistead

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Harry Armistead

Date:

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:50:28 +0000

            FERRY NECK/RIGBY’S FOLLY, JUNE 7-10, 2009.
            Not much.  Except for one 1.5 hour episode of trail brushwork, a walk down the drive, and picking up a neighbor’s boat, I barely leave the yard.
            Addenda:  June 4, Thursday:  going out the driveway there are 17 deer, 9 of them bucks.  A Northern Harrier (hairy northerner) over the fields near Hope, Queen Annes County, a subadult male.
            Sunday, June 7, 2:45-dark only.  Fair becoming clear, 83-77, SW5-10.  Liz & I hear a Black-crowned Night Heron call several times, about the 19th yard record.  Also, a Pileated Woodpecker is in good voice.  A 3.5’ Black Rat Snake is right next to the foundation of the west side of the house.  Present are males of Indigo Bunting, Blue Grosbeak, and Orchard Oriole, all singing.  A Red Fox utters its rather horrid, ghastly call outside our bedroom window at 10:50 A.M.
            Monday, June 8.  Fair, 74-90, SW5.  The fox calls again at 12:50 A.M. close to the house’s north side.  4 Green Herons.  1 Great Egret.  There are some Fowler’s Toads hopping on the lawn, an activity at which they excel.  One of them favors the damp, shady area around the hose on the north side.  Liz sees an adult Bald Eagle.  There’s a young Five-lined Skink on the front porch with its long whip antenna tail, the brightest of blues.  Big Green Tree Frog chorus from the direction of Tranquility, and possibly a few at The Pond.  See a Mud Turtle crossing the driveway on the south side of Field 4.  
            Find an active cardinal’s nest in a bayberry on the Warbler Trail, where I do some work today.  See our first juvenile Eastern Bluebird in company with its parents.  Drive over to Ben Weems’ to trailer his new sailboat, a 16’ O’Day DaySailer, over to our rudimentary launching ramp.  On the way out Gunners’ Range Road Ben and I see 6 deer (incl. 4 bucks), 5 Wild Turkeys (1 tom, 3 hens, and 1 poult), a Gray Squirrel, an Eastern Cottontail, and, best of all, a pair of Northern Bobwhite, which I thought had disappeared completely from Ferry Neck.  Perhaps these quail are released birds.  
            Tuesday, June 9.  36 Canada Geese are out on Irish Creek, none, as far as I can tell, birds of the year.  A Yellow-billed Cuckoo calls, living up to its colloquial name of Rain Crow.  1 Snowy Egret.  A gang of American Crows is tormenting a Great horned Owl in Woods 8.  See a 2’ Northern Watersnake swimming by the dock.  Spend much of the day helping Ben rig his boat.  George calls from Alaska, where a Rustic Bunting is a life bird.    
            Overcast with thunder and lightning and some rain in the morning, 74-85-67, then fair, until a massive storm moves in from the northwest at 6 P.M., preceded by a deep purpleish-black, high, dark cloud formation that stretches 90 degrees while still in the distance and finally envelops us with a well-demarcated, rapidly moving gray squall line trailing wispy curtains of virga behind it.  There is thunder, lightning, and torrential rain for an hour with winds of 35 m.p.h.  In nearby Caroline County at Ridgely winds reach 48 m.p.h.  
            This is an awesome, frightening, apocalyptic storm that the 3 of us thoroughly savor.  Within minutes it whips up a seething mass of whitecaps in Irish Creek and the cove.  Ominous, somewhat globular dark gray clouds depend from the high purpleish-black cloud bank.  In spite of this impressive storm we see no downed limbs or trees.  Ditches, our 3 small ponds, and low areas in the fields and woods are now brimming over, and they were close to it even before these latest rains.  Contractors, farmers, landscapers, and others (including trail tending in my own case) have fallen behind schedule due to the frequent rains this spring.  These are good times to be a Fowler’s Toad.  Our fields remain unplanted.  Ben’s boat rides out the storm at our dock, is O.K.      
            Wednesday, June 10.  Clear, 68, nearly calm but a slight SW breeze.  Ben continues to work on his boat out by our dock.  Two young Gray Squirrels, disarmingly naïve and unconcerned with my presence, descend the oak at the west end of the house and slowly scamper across the lawn.  Let’s hope they acquire some savoir faire … soon. 
            Headin’ home.  Nothin’, for a change, at the Route 481 pond but just north of there 5 Black and 5 Turkey vultures are chowing down on a roadkill doe.            ‘Til the next time.  Best to all. – Harry Armistead, Philadelphia.  
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