FERRY NECK, BLACKWATER N.W.R. & SWAN HARBOR, October 22-26, 2009. ROSALIE EDGE BIOGRAPHY. Liz and Harry Armistead. Unless noted otherwise observations are at our place, Rigby’s Folly, Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD.
This will be my last report for a while. I’ll be out of the country October 31-November 25.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22. We count 169 Turkey Vultures as we drive down from Philadelphia. Present at Rigby’s Folly from 3:15 until dark only. 16 Common Loons, 1 Royal Tern, 1 Brown Thrasher, 2 American Black Ducks, 2 Surf Scoters, 2 Wood Ducks, 1 catbird, 1 Snowy Egret, and 35 Yellow-rumped Warblers. 1 deer. Has rained considerably in the past few days. Lawn cut for the last time, probably yesterday.
Fair, SW5, 71-67, tide rising.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23. Present only until 10:30 A.M., then again from 4:30 until dark. Out at the mouth of the cove is a Common Loon still in full breeding plumage. 1 Great Horned Owl. By the garage is a small frog statuette placed on a Red Cedar stump; today the frog has a live Land Snail that has glommed onto its throat. Earlier a Fowler’s Toad had hopped onto the stump and was sitting next to the frog. Liz sees a Brown Creeper. 1 buck and 1 Gray Squirrel. Bruce Olszewski sees 4 Wild Turleys in Field 4. 57-68, mostly overcast, calm becoming NE 10. 2 Sharp-shinned Hawks. Clear out the boat and trailer it on down to Gootees for winter storage.
Blackwater N.W.R. A quick looksee with 9 kestrels on the wires along Egypt Road at noon, and perhaps the same 9 on returning at 3:30, 4 of them with prey items. The American White Pelican is still at Sewards, as if tied to a cinder block, Blackwater’s answer to Mount Rushmore. Also nearby on the Christmas tree reef are 53 Forster’s Terns and 19 cormorants. Along Wildlife Drive: 4 Bald Eagles, 1 Great Egret, and a latish Caspian Tern. 1 Red-bellied Slider and 1 Painted Turtle.
Swan Harbor, north of Upper Hooper’s Island, 1:30-2:30, do an hour hawk count: 39 Turkey Vultures, 1 Merlin, 1 kestrel, 5 Bald Eagles, 10 Sharp-shinned, 1 Red-tailed & 2 Cooper’s Hawks, 1 Northern Harrier = 60 raptors. Not bad for one hour in the early afternoon. Imagine what this place could do with day-long coverage for the entire fall. Also: 450 Laughing Gulls with 85 Herring and 12 Ring-billed gulls, actively hawking high up (I’m not used to seeing these larger gulls hawking) and 27 cormorants in migration, 1 Great Egret, 8 Virginia and 4 Clapper Rails.
The rails called with a big assist from the iPod but without my hearing aids. With the aids I bet I would have heard several more of each. Butterflies: 5 Buckeyes, 3 Monarchs, 1 Cloudless Sulphur. Raptor flight is headed south into the SSW 5-10 m.p.h. winds. Fair becoming overcast. 75 degrees.
Hip Roof Road: 1 Great Egret, one 15” Northern Watersnake that strikes repeatedly at my shoe when I try to shove it off of the road.
Cambridge: 10 Black Vultures in a kettle right over town. Purchase oysters and fresh rockfish at Kool Ice plus 100 lbs. of corn at the wonderful store next door,
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24. 4 Bald Eagles (2 ad., 2 imm.), 6 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 105 Yellow-rumped Warblers, 6 Eastern Meadowlarks (a flock coming in from the north across the cove and going right over the dock), 2 Ospreys, 5 Royal Terns, 2 Snowy Egrets, 12 Forster’s Terns, a female American Kestrel, 15 American Black Ducks (a good count for here), 5 Mallards, and 2 Great Blue Herons.. The moderate, occasional rain energizes 2 Spring Peepers to give half-hearted calls. The Olszewskis in the past several days have shot (muzzleloaders) 2 does and an 8-point buck. On the ground by the garage are 106 walnuts, fallen from a medium-sized tree there. See a Monarch, a Buckeye, and 2 Cabbage Whites. Mostly overcast to overcast, SE-SW 20+, very high tide, high 60s-75 degrees F. Very windy, esp. in the evening. Rain: 10 A.M. and 6 P.M. and later, esp. at 7:15 when there is heavy precipitation. 1 Gray Squirrel.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25:
Blackwater N.W.R. birdwalk, 7:30 A.M. – 12:30 P.M. with Liz Armistead, Burt Barnow, Mark Brockway, Ellen & Tim Cimino, Nancy Kassner, John Krustins, Peter & Susan Kryszak, Kurt Schwarz, and Levin Willey. 67 species. Fair, W-NW 15+ diminishing to c. 10, 60s.
Best of all are a surprising 11 shorebird species, all in 2 fields west of the Visitor Center, including 2 Hudsonian Godwits (present for several days), 7 Black-bellied & 4 Semipalmated plovers, 35 Killdeer, 9 Greater & 1 Lesser yellowlegs, 1 Wilson’s Snipe, 30 Dunlin, 9 Long-billed Dowitchers, and 2 Pectoral and 4 Western sandpipers. With all of these here I am surprised not to also find Least Sandpiper.
Other goodies: 1 Great Egret, 20 Snow Geese, 425 Green-winged Teal, 20 pintails, 5 Ruddy Ducks & 3 Wood ducks, 5 Red-tailed Hawks, 14 Bald Eagles, 54 Forster’s Terns, 1 Horned Lark, 8 Brown-headed Nuthatches (crippling views and much vocalization by the little dears), 1 Marsh Wren, a few of both the kinglets, 7 meadowlarks, an American Pipit, a Red-breasted Nuthatch, and the steadfast white pelican plus a Red-bellied Slider, a Painted Turtle, and a Gray Squirrel.
Rigby’s Folly, from 2 P.M. until dark only. A Winter Wren, 3 Common Loons coming in unerringly headed south and very high, 20 Blue Jays, 25 White-throated Sparrows, a Swamp Sparrow, a Snowy Egret, 12 flickers, 1 Bald Eagle, 2 phoebes, a kingfisher, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and 85 Yellow-rumped Warblers. Also a very nice, furry adult Red Fox. Five Gray Squirrels, one hitching up a loblolly on the north side of the Olszewski Trails, regarding me all the way and whisk and flicking its tail furiously. 7 Cabbage Whites and 2 unID’d anglewings. 3 Bald Eagles, 2 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 2 Red-tailed Hawks, and 2 Black Vultures. See no phoebes. There are a lot of birds around today, big influx of middle-distance migrants. I expect I missed a good morning flight here by being at Blackwaters. Fair, 60, NW 10, cool, low tide, and … see next paragraph, too:
Lucy Point, 5:30-6:30 P.M. Liz and I watch one of the clearest, brightest sunsets we’ve ever seen. Right down to the horizon the sun is blinding and bright and undiminished - no clouds between us and Old Man Sol. The combination of exceptional clarity and a millpond surface on the mouth of the Choptank River enable excellent scoping, with birds miles away showing up clearly. A stupendous presence of Laughing Gulls, carefully estimated via slowly counting by tens, to be 3,370. Our previous yard high count: 890 on October 29, 1999.
Also out there: 123 Common Loons, the 4th highest property count but with only a few small pods, the biggest being merely eleven. Plus: 1 Horned Grebe, 30 Surf Scoters, 45 Forster’s Terns, and a Merlin. No Royal Terns. Only a few Herring, Ring-billed and Great Black-backed gulls mixed in with the laughers. The LAGUs only form a few very dense groups of 100 or more each – those apparently in a feeding frenzy. The remainder are flying around, mostly heading south or southeast, or else resting on the water’s surface. A dozen or so boats with anglers are out there, but I don’t see anyone catching anything.
MONDAY, October 26. 3 Slate-colored Juncos (twitterkins), my first ones this fall. Lovely ad. male Northern Harrier goes through, flying due south. Two Cedar Waxwings, strangely the only ones seen this visit at a time of year when there are often numerous flocks in visible migration. 4 Common Loons arrive, coming in high and fast. Mostly overcast, 51-56 degrees F., NE winds @ < 5 m.p.h.
HEADIN’ HOME. In a wheat field on the right heading in towards Easton (just west of the Manor at Ratcliffe) are dozens of Killdeer. Two adult and 2 immature Bald Eagles soaring just north of the intersection of Routes 309 and 481. Our vulture count on the way back to Philadelphia is 136.
ROSALIE EDGE BIOGRAPHY. Rosalie Edge: hawk of mercy – the activist who saved nature from the conservationists by Dyana Z. Furmansky (U. of Georgia Press, 2009, hardbound, 312 pages, $28.95). Liz and I went to Hawk Mountain on October 19, giving me a chance to acquire this compelling title at the place that Edge was primarily responsible for establishing as a sanctuary. She took on the conservation establishment, esp. in the 1930s and 1940s when big outfits such as the Audubon Society were unduly influenced by logging, gun manufacturing, and hunting interests as well as big business and chamber of commerce types. For example, she opposed Audubon’s Louisiana Rainey sanctuary’s policy of the trapping of 1000s of animals and keeping much of the money their pelts brought.
She challenged them mercilessly and was highly successful. Described here are her relationships with, or else her influence on or influence by: various Audubon officers, the American Forestry Association, the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club, the Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club, John Muir, Maurice Broun (Morris Brownstein), Gilbert Pearson, John Baker, Edward Howe Forbush, Frank Chapman, George Bird Grinnell, Gifford Pinchot, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, Robert Cushman Murphy, Arthur Cleveland Bent, FDR, Theodore Palmer, Rachel Carson (who she never met), Ira Gabrielson, Carl Bucheister, Olivia de Havilland (!), and others.
It is shocking how many of these great (mostly) men were adverse to protecting birds of prey, or else were afraid to take a stance for political reasons. Roger Tory Peterson was an earlier admirer.
An unbelievable story of how one person can make a huge difference. Aside from Hawk Mountain Edge played a big role in establishing national parks on the West Coast, esp. those where there are stands of enormous trees. Occasionally Furmansky (whose nom de plume in other venues is Dyan Zaslowsky) writes somewhat awkwardly when it comes to birds but otherwise her book is one I highly recommend. She describes violent arguments, many alienations, some reconciliations, and how the big organizations largely changed to adopt philosophies Edge was one of the earliest to champion. Edge’s family life was mostly an unhappy one. She took with her in her life an imperious Fifth Avenue cachet that wasn’t always pleasant to experience but was nonetheless very effective.
Other than ravens and a lot of charming chipmunks Liz and I didn’t see much at Hawk Mountain, but it was great to be there anyway, and nearby is the gargantuan Cabela’s store where I finished getting outfitted.
Best regards to all. – Harry Armistead, Philadelphia.
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