SEPTEMBER 11-14, 2009. Ferry Neck, Holland Island, Poplar Island. I do not see the oversummering Horned Grebe this visit.
FRIDAY, September 11. Rigby’s Folly on Ferry Neck. 2:30 P.M. – dark only. Overcast, 64 degrees F. the entire time, strong NE winds 20-25 m.p.h., unsettled weather, some light rain. Cool. Tide lowish. Has been MUCH rain recently, probably several inches. Ditches and ponds brimming over.
The strong recent NE weather system has blown in some birds. 24 Purple Martins are a new, and still unimpressive, property high count, although it IS getting late for them. My late date for them here is September 25. The previous highs are 20 on both August 10 and 13, 1957. 77 Forster’s Terns are out hunting and beating INTO the winds way out over the Choptank River mouth, our 2nd highest count, the 1st being 204 on September 7, 1996, in the aftermath of Hurricane Fran.
Also: 9 Wild Turkeys (the new starling; 3 of them poults), 8 Barn Swallows, 8 Chimney Swifts, 4 Bald Eagles, 6 Ospreys, a yellowthroat, 7 Snowy Egrets (11 other counts have ranged from 11-31, but none of those are later than 1998), 2 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 1 kestrel, 4 Black Vultures, 1 Royal Tern, 65 Laughing Gulls, 1 adult Red-tailed Hawk, 2 Green Herons, and 5 mockingbirds, 1 of them a stubby-tailed juvenile.
4 or 5 Marsh Hibiscus are discovered close to our boundary with Tranquility plus several Green Ash identified by Jared Sparks, who overnights. 6 deer. 1 Fowler’s Toad, very pudgy and ready to hop. The American Robin roost is still going with 364 clicked this evening.
SATURDAY, September 12. Gloomy, overcast, 64-69, NW15+, occasional sprinkles. Jared, who is very experienced with chainsaws, and I clear the huge, fallen Red Maple limb that just missed hitting the garage. Lots of honeycomb inside the extensive cavity but the bees have left.
4 Bald Eagles, 20 Cedar Waxwings, 43 Chimney Swifts (8th highest count; highest is 70 on September 23, 1998), 1 Red-eyed Vireo, only 4 martins today, only 4 Forster’s Terns, 11 American Crows, 1 House Wren, and 2 House Finches. I sure could use a warbler wave; what does it take?
1 bat. The robin roost maxes out at a lower 298, joined by 2 waxwings. There is quite a chorus of Southern Leopard Frogs at The Pond but they are very subdued and sotto voce compared to their spring vocalization antics(will never win the Pavarotti contest at ANY season). At the Waterthrush Pond a Green Frog, poker-faced, dour, sits on the bank. There is, again, a bunch of clusters of Sea Lavender this year behind the rip-rap on the bank adjoining Woods 7 - beautiful, subtle, understated little flowers. 1 toad, much cuter than the frogs.
SUNDAY, September 13. A 24.6 mile boat trip with Jared to a couple of south Dorchester County islands. On the water 9:45 A.M. – 5 P.M. Overcast becoming fair (very fair), lovely weather, temps in the 70s, winds NW-N-NE 5-10. Use 6.099 gallons of regular gas = c. 4 m.p.g.
Blackwater N.W.R. The steadfast American White Pelican is still haunting the Sewards causeway. Levin Willey, Jared, and I find at least 20 Pine, a Black-and-white, and a Yellow warbler, 3 chickadees, and a Brown-headed Nuthatch on Wildlife Drive where the road goes off to the observation spur. Along Shorter’s Wharf Road are 8 Mute Swans and a Savannah Sparrow.
Crocheron: 75 Double-crested Cormorants, 2 Brown Pelicans, and 2 Royal Terns.
South end of Bloodsworth Island: 15 Royal Terns, 45 cormorants, 10 Brown Pelicans, 1 Great Blue Heron (often strangely scarce out on these islands in September), 1 adult Little Blue Heron, and an adult Bald Eagle.
Spring Island (a unit of Blackwater N.W.R.), 9:45-10:45 A.M., complete list: 25 Brown Pelicans, 2 Royal Terns, 1 Great Egret, 1 Great Blue Heron, 9 cormorants, 8 Seaside Sparrows (both adults and juveniles), 6 Herring, 1 Great Black-backed & 6 Laughing gulls, and 1 Osprey. Lots of little grasshoppers, some small and medium-sized, dark unIDd butterflies, 1000s of periwinkles and mussels, subtle little clusters of blooming asters, pottery shards, and bricks. 1 pelican skeleton. There’s a dense, extensive stand of Phragmites on the south end. The expected saltmarsh plants are here: Spartina(s) alterniflora, cynosuroides & patens, Distichlis spicata, Baccharis halimifolia, Iva frutescens. It looks to us as if the peregrine hacking tower enclosure has simply blown off the pilings. No ducks or oystercatchers (or peregrines). Hard to believe there were 3 families living on Spring Island in the 1870s. Now it is reduced to a few acres of saltmarsh and sod tump shoreline.
Holland Island, south segment. 11 A.M. – 3 P.M. Tide lowering the entire time and becoming lower than normal. Here’s the complete list of 34 species:
American Black Duck 3, Northern Pintail 13, Brown Pelican 1,250 (this round number does not look like a careful estimate, but it is; when the pelicans from 3 closeby areas are added the total becomes 1,287; I’ll bet 100+ more are on the Pone Island sandbars, which we do not visit), Double-crested Cormorant 30, Great Blue Heron 1, Great Egret 2, Tricolored Heron 1, Black-crowned Night Heron 3, Yellow-crowned Night Heron, 1, Glossy Ibis 2, Osprey 2 (no sign of the ground nest that was on the extreme south end the previous 2 years), Bald Eagle 3 (1 adult hanging around the isolated Loblolly Pine at the extreme south end), Clapper Rail 3, oystercatcher 0 (!), Sanderling 3, Least Sandpiper 5 (extremely tame), Laughing Gull 25, Herring Gull 30, Great Black-backed Gull 3, Royal Tern 4, Forster’s Tern 0, Ruby-throated Hummingbird 1, Eastern Wood-Pewee 1, Eastern Phoebe 1, Eastern Kingbird 1, Fish Crow 11, Tree Swallow 27, Carolina Wren 4, Gray Catbird 1, American Redstart 1, Common Yellowthroat 1, Seaside Sparrow 2, Song Sparrow 1, Red-winged Blackbird 2, Boat-tailed Grackle 4, and a bird that was either a Baltimore Oriole or a tanager 1.
Jared penetrates the north hammock and finds an old graveyard there with c. 10 headstones, some of them commemorating members of the Todd family. We find 4 big jellyfish washed up, 9” or more across, with an attractive pattern of 4 rounded-off rectangular patterns in their centers.
A Jamie Taylor from Frenchtown, Somerset County, is here, arriving by jet ski, and progging the shorelines. He shows us a fine 3.5” spear point and a small projectile point he has just found. I find 3 old bottles, one the common O. K. Davis baking powder type, the other 2 the small, semi-rectangular and very narrow medicinal bottle type. There are some nice clusters of Sea Lavender, Goldenrod, Joe-pye-weed, and Asters. Countless 1000s of Fiddler Crabs and Periwinkles., plus all the vege mentioned above for Spring Island.
FIDDLER CRABS –a lifetime supply. The interior marsh, esp. where there is patens, spicata, and low alterniflora, really does have fiddlers in Hitchcockian quantity. Some of the tidal pools are lined with thousands. They have honeycombed much of the interior marsh substrate so that it makes Swiss cheese look like the monolith in “2001 a space odyssey.”
SHELLS. The best quantities of shells are on the SW part of Holland Island, mostly the depauperate, bland coquillage one has become used to in the Middle Atlantic region. However, it is enriched by the presence of beautiful, exquisite Angelwings, about at their northern limit here in the Bay … I think. Delicate shells. There’s a 4.5 incher in our kitchen, a touchstone that transports my thoughts to Holland Island every time I see it. The island has some genuine small beaches also with their attendant vegetation just back of the bare sand.
FAVORITE DUNE. Towards the extreme SW end is an attractive dune strip c. 7’ high and 75’ long with a surprising group of young trees: an oak, 2 Elms, a poplar, a few Loblolly Pines, and Red Cedars plus many persimmons, none of them more than 7’ high.
VISIBILITY is excellent today. To the south the hammocks of Smith Island stand out with clarity, incl. Cherry Island, part of Glenn L. Martin N.W.R., and all the way to the trees of Ewell with its tower lights flashing. Six miles to the SW there is the target ship the ‘American Mariner.’ The south end of the island is where I’d situate my dream house, with prospects off to the South and East, places to lure one away from home.
HOLLAND ISLAND TO BE MEMORIALIZED. Celebrated Chesapeake Bay photographer Dave Harp and writer Tom Horton are working on slide shows and other media concerning Holland Island for the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.
In the distance 5 Mute Swans are near Pone Island.
KABOOM. Hit a submerged metal object at 22 m.p.h. off of Cove Point (SE Bloodsworth Island) on the way back to Crocheron, near where a target ship was beached on the shoreline years ago. One of the propeller blades is bent and suffers a fracture. The bottom part of the skeg is knocked off. We motor back to the landing at a cautious 6 m.p.h.
Wingate: 4 American Kestrels, a surprise way down here.
Golden Hill: 10 Wild Turkeys.
MONDAY, September 14. Going out our driveway are 3 groups of Wild Turkeys totaling 21 plus a fawn.
Poplar Island, 9 A.M. – 1 P.M. Clear, NW 5, temps in the 70s, low 80s at end, high tide. Lovely weather. The totals/estimates below are just what I saw, not the official ones (for those see MDOSPREY). A trip organized by Barry Cooper and Gail Mackiernan and with Bob Ringler, JimStasz, Sherman Suter (a much-appreciated amanuensis du jour), Paul & Priscilla Thut and perhaps a dozen others present in force, armed to the teeth with high-end optics. Jan Reese is doing one of his surveys and, as usual, helps us find much we might otherwise miss.
Highlights for me are my first Talbot County Marbled Godwit and my first Maryland Baird’s Sandpiper, the latter pleasing me especially since I am the first to notice it. 18 other shorebirds included 26 American Avocets, 2 Wilson’s Phalaropes, 1 American Golden-Plover, a few Western Sandpipers, 100 or more Sanderlings, a few White-rumped Sandpipers, 3 Dunlin, 1 Western Willet, a few Stilt Sandpipers, 2 turnstones, several Short-billed Dowitchers, and some Pectoral Sandpipers. Jan has seen some oystercatchers and a Tricolored Heron that we miss.
Also: 8 Bald Eagles (in sight simultaneously), 8 Surf Scoters, over 1,000 Mallards, a few each of Blue-winged and Green-winged teal, shovelers, and pintails, 1 Ruddy Duck, 100s, I am sorry to have to say, of cowbirds and starlings, a Caspian Tern, a Common Tern (but no Comintern or Poliburo), a Merlin, 3 harriers, and a few Barn Swallows. Others see a Palm Warbler, a Savannah Sparrow, 1 Black Tern, 2 Cattle, 3 Great, and 15 Snowy egrets, and a peregrine. Also: 1 Muskrat.
Butterflies: Lots of flowering plants on Poplar Island and these butterflies: Cloudless Sulphurs, a Checkered White, 8 Monarchs, many Orange Sulphurs, a few Cabbage Whites, a Red-spotted Purple, Sachems, a Black Swallowtail, a Spicebush Swallowtail, Painted Ladies, and a Red Admiral.
Tilghman Island: At the parking lot for the boat we see both Scarlet and Summer tanagers, 5 Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, a Blackburnian and a Black-and-white warbler, a phoebe, a Cooper’s Hawk, and a pewee.
ONE LESS PIGEON. When you strike one at 65 on your right outside mirror along Route 1 in Delaware it doesn’t have much of a chance. Neither does the mirror. Requiescat in pavement.
SAM DROEGE ON N.P.R. At 5:56 on NPR Monday evening there is a segment on katydids and night insects, esp. in the NYC area, and Sam Droege is interviewed.
JODY POWELL, R.I.P. On May 27, 2008, I was privileged to be asked down to Powell’s farm west of Cambridge along with several biologists, including Glenn Carowan, former manager of Blackwater N.W.R., to see impounded areas in the fields there. I was struck by Jody’s unpretentious manner and southern charm, especially his Georgia accent. He was Jimmy Carter’s press secretary and said the President came sometimes to hunt on his farm. I was saddened to hear on the radio of his death there on Sunday at the early age of 65 from a heart attack. It was obvious he was a good steward of his Neck District farm. On a property nearby we were all looking over some other impoundments when suddenly a sub-adult Mississippi Kite flew close by at low altitude affording everyone excellent views. Jody told me to come down anytime with bird club members. I’ll always regret I didn’t.
NORMA BORLAUG, R.I.P. Borlaug was a Nobel laureate and primarily responsible for the Green Revolution which affords increased food production for millions. He died recently also. Back at the height of concerns about the effects of DDT on the reproductive capacities of certain birds, especially Peregrine Falcons, Borlaug remained convinced this was faulty science and that pesticides were not the reason for some species’ catastrophic declines. I once wrote him, in the early 1970s, citing a cover story in Science and other literature. I was surprised to receive a carefully composed response from him. He didn’t budge an inch but I was impressed he’d taken the time to write back. In my experience people who are heavily invested in agriculture, including relatedly many entomologists, and of course the chemical companies, downplay the harmful effects of chemicals, either through denial, mendacity, or outright duplicity. I can’t say for certain but my impression was that Borlaug really believed pesticides were not to blame. Most biologists believe they were.
Best to all. – Harry Armistead, Philadelphia.
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