FERRY NECK, TALBOT COUNTY, MD, SEPTEMBER 6-8, 2009.
Sunday, September 6. 6 P.M. – dark only. Mostly overcast becoming fair, E10-NE 15, 77-75.
Often while going in the drive one sees nothing. This time, without getting out of the car, I see 5 Wild Turkeys, an adult Bald Eagle, and, in Field 4: 6 bucks (2 with 8 points, 3 with 6, 1 with 4), 2 does, and a fawn.
Do a watch from the dock 6:40-7:45 P.M. The American Robin roost is still ongoing and I click 366. Also: 15 species include a Common Nighthawk, 7 Cedar Waxwings, 5 Forster’s Terns, and 2 large young Mute Swan (no sign of their 2 parents and 6 siblings; perhaps “the state” has “removed” them. 1 Fowler’s Toad.
BAT FALCON. A spectacular chase involves a female Merlin which stoops at a bat 9 times, but the bat, with apparent ease, escapes. But they disappear to the south behind some trees and I do not see the final outcome. See a 2nd bat, too.
Seldom seen here, a red and black Velvet Ant works its way out towards the end of the dock, for reasons best known to itself. “Just what makes that little ole ant/Think he’ll move that rubber tree plant … /But he’s got high hopes/He’s got high hopes/He’s got high apple-pie-in-the-sky hopes …/Oops, there goes another rubber tree/Oops, there goes another rubber tree/Oops there goes another rubber tree plant.” With apologies to Harry Kalas, the late great Phillies announcer. That was his favorite song.
The Olszewskis have been here and left a basket of apples and large, extremely juicy peaches plus 3 Buddleia. The “weeds” in the soy bean fields have been killed with herbicides.
Monday, September 7 (Labor Day). NNE15, 67-77, fair becoming overcast, humid, rain 1:30 P.M. for < 0.5 hrs.
No influx of migrants today. A poor showing but do see 35 Bobolinks, 9 Wild Turkeys (including 6 poults), 2 House Wrens, the Horned Grebe (present the entire time), 2 adult Bald Eagles, 5 Cedar Waxwings, and 12 Tree Swallows (which often appear after easterly winds here). 3 Gray Squirrels. A deer herd, apparently the same as yesterday, is again in Field 4, but with an additional buck and doe.
Do another dusk watch from the dock 6:15-7:45 P.M. For some reson the robin roost has increased to 443. 17 species including 4 Snowy Egrets, 3 Ospreys, 3 Royal & 3 Forster’s terns, 2 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, 2 Great Blue & 1 Green heron, and a kingfisher.
Do some chainsawing, and, another favorite recreation, pulling with the car and 0.5” rope broken but not disconnected limbs from the mostly dead Red Maple by the garage. Crash!! Cut the grasses, honeysuckle, Panicum, Iva, and Baccharis that partially obscure the view, while sitting in the chairs there, of the mouth of the Choptank River from Lucy Point. Delightful that the Marsh Hibiscus with the little pink blossoms persists on the west side of the boat ramp. 4 Fowler’s Toads.
At 4:30 A.M., Labor Day notwithstanding, the USS Herndon is plying the waters of Irish Creek, tending its trot line. From bed I can hear its radio chatter and see its lights behind the undergrowth on the bank. Waning moonlight comes through the south windows. A Great Blue Heron cranks several times, right outside the house on the shoreline, 8 cranks each time. Insomnia is sometimes nearly a blessing.
Tuesday, September 8. Overcast, has been very little rain last night, 66- , NE15+. Poor prospects for birding with this gloomy weather. I plant the Olszewski’s 3 Buddleias and leave at 10:30 A.M.
HEADIN’ HOME. The first tentative swipes of the corn harvest are apparent along Route 481. At milepost 100 on Route 301 is a roadkill immature Red-tailed Hawk, unbanded. Some day I’ll find a banded one, perhaps banded by someone I know or know of. Drop into Sassafras to see if by chance Serge and Paula Duckett are there. They’re not. Citizens of Paris, they choose to spend their summer in landlocked Sassafras. I am sad that I have missed them this summer. There is a d.o.r. Woodchuck nearby. Over the Delaware-Chesapeake Canal bridge (Route 1) is an adult Bald Eagle.
GOOD JOURNALISM. In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, September 6, is “A drop in the Bay: efforts for one Pa. stream show vast task of saving the habitat,” by Sandy Bauers with photographs by Sharon Gekoski-Kimmel. Focuses on the effects Pennsylvania has on Chesapeake Bay. Takes up c. ˝ of page A1 and all of pages A12-14, has 1 color and 9 black-and-white photographs, 2 maps, and a detailed chart showing nitrogen and phosphorus loads and other information. Excellent article. A series of 6 or 7 such as this would be worthy of a Pulitzer Prize nomination. Bauers writes frequently on the plight of the Red Knot.
A YEAR ON THE WING; my four seasons with birds on land, sea, and sky by Tim Dee, October 2009, 256 pages, Free Press (Simon and Schuster). During my insomnia this visit I read from this, a book I’m reviewing for Library journal. Dee’s a BBC producer, knows his birds, and has a deep grasp of world literature. One chapter deals with starlings, an 8,000,000 bird roost in England:
“Black has overtaken the starlings, too. If I could separate just one bird from the lines flying above me, or the legions in the fields, I could find their daytime sheen of pearl-spotted oily iridescence, but the massing birds take on a generic black … As they whirl and gyre en masse, the sound of their wings turning sweeps upward like brushes dashed across a snare drum or a Spanish fan being flicked open, making a brittle percussion on the skin of the sky … They are like iron filings made to bend to a magnet … The flock … pulses in and out in a fluent welter of life … To describe the flock is like trying to hold on to a dream in daylight.” (pp. 108-109).
A little writerly and precious, perhaps purple, but the entire book is like this and makes for anticipatory reading. Each next sentence, almost, surprises the reader. One is not supposed to quote from an advance uncorrected proof or before the review is published, but I don’t see the harm in the context of this limited forum here.
Best to all. – Harry Armistead, Philadelphia.
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