SOUTH MARSH, HOLLAND & SPRING ISLANDS, JUNE 8 and FERRY NECK, JUNE 7-11, 2010.  Observations are at Rigby’s Folly, unless otherwise indicated.    
            ABBREVIATION:  ISS, in sight simultaneously.
            SOME CENTRAL CHESAPEAKE BAY ISLANDS (Dorchester County, unless indicated otherwise), Tuesday, June 8.  A 42.6 statute mile boat trip with Jared Sparks.  7:30 A.M. – 3:45 P.M.  Clear, NW15-20+, 70s.  A pretty day but the winds made for slow going, unless we ran with them.  Water temperatures in the low 70s.  High tide at Holland Island Bar Light (slightly SW of where we go today and near to the bombing target, the grounded ship, the ‘American Mariner’) at 10:30 A.M.  It is a somewhat low high tide.           
            LEATHERBACK TURTLE.  From the moving boat we see a dead one with a carapace c. 4-5 feet long on the South Marsh Island shore.  Jared does a GPS waypoint: 38° 04.81’ X 076° 02.38’, but this is from a moving boat and c. 150 feet from the turtle.  If I’d had more presence of mind I’d have stopped, measured the turtle, and photographed it.  However, the fresh wind would have made a landing somewhat laborious.  The corpse is oriented to the NW parallel to and on the narrow beach.  Its left front flipper is very long.  The next day I call it in to the Sarbanes Oxford Cooperative Laboratory (talk with Molly); they indicate they’ll try to get there to weigh, measure, perhaps take tissue samples, etc.  I remember reading of one weighing more than 1,000 pounds that washed up somewhere in Dorchester County decades ago.
            Crocheron: 40 Canada Geese around the west jetty including 3 downy goslings.
            Bloodsworth Island, SE area: 2 adult Bald Eagles at rest along the marsh edge.
            Spring Island (a part of Blackwater N.W.R.).  8:11-8:45 A.M.  The peregrine is absent from the remains of the hacking tower.  Instead 2 adult Herring Gulls sit there.  Complete bird list: 1 male Northern Harrier (chased by an oystercatcher; no doubt this hawk strayed from nearby Bloodsworth or South Marsh islands), 1 Gadwall, 5 Great Black-backed & 3 Herring gulls, 8 Seaside Sparrows, 1 ♀ Mallard with 1 downy young, 3 American Oystercatchers, 1 Great & 1 Snowy egret, 6 Double-crested Cormorants, 6 Brown Pelicans, 1 Great Blue, 1 Little Blue & 1 Yellow-crowned Night Heron, and 1 Clapper Rail.  No gull nests found but it’s intimidating to have an adult Great Black-backed Gull dive on me 6 times.
            Pry Island, a satellite of South Marsh Island, Somerset County.  Formerly small numbers of cormorants and pelicans nested here.  9:05-9:20 A.M.  1 Dunlin, 5 Brown Pelicans, 1 Gadwall (flushes as if from a nest that we do not find), 1 Cow-nosed Ray.  Not much left of the place, some small, muddy, open pools and a little beach but mostly grasses.  Combined Herring and Great Black-backed gull nests:  1 egg in 2 nests, 2 eggs in 8, 3 eggs in 7, 2 young in 2, 1 egg & 1 young in 2, 1 young in 1, and 1 fresh nest with nothing for a total of 23 gull nests.  In sight simultaneously: c. 65 Herring and 12 Great Black-backed gulls.      
            South Marsh Island, west and south sides, Sedgy Point to Sheepshead Point, Somerset County, as seen from the boat, 9:30-10:15 A.M., as close to wilderness as anywhere I know of on the Bay:  Mute Swan 3, Mallard 1, American Black Duck 5, Fish Crow 2, Northern Harrier 2, Seaside Sparrow 4, Glossy Ibis 3, Osprey 4, Marsh Wren 1, cormorant 6, pelican 8, Great 5 & Snowy egret 2, Black-bellied Plover 1, Dunlin 1, Royal Tern 1, oystercatcher 4, Laughing 1, Herring 8 & Great black-backed gull 6, and Little Blue 1 & Great Blue heron 6.  NO WILLETS seen anywhere on South Marsh Island in spite of several square miles of prime habitat, perhaps due to the presence of breeding Peregrine Falcons.  43 Diamondback Terrapin.
            South Marsh Island, hammock and tidal gut area in the south-central east part of the island, Somerset County.  10:30-11:30 A.M.  The entrance to the tidal gut, running from NNE to SSW, that leads up to (and past), the small hammock is very easy to miss, and, in fact, we do miss it and have to backtrack.  The little hammock has a few small Black Locusts and American Hackberries that used to support a very small but diverse heronry.  There are 2 small, circular and stagnant ponds surrounded by dense vegetation including Scirpus.  To the south, east, and west of the hammock is a rather high, marshy meadow of perhaps 10 acres that consists primarily of dense Distichlis spicata with Spartina patens as a lesser component.  One has to wonder if there might be Black Rails here.  There is dense Baccharis halimifolia and Iva frutescens as well as Phragmites, Goldenrod, and Poison Ivy.  
            Complete bird list:  Glossy Ibis 6, Tricolored 2 & Black-crowned Night 1 heron, Seaside 7, Song 1 & Saltmarsh sparrow 1, cormorant 2, Common Yellowthroat 2, House Wren 1 (a surprise), Boat-tailed Grackle 4 (probable nesters), Northern Harrier 1, Peregrine Falcon 2 (both the ♂ & ♀ put on dramatic flight shows around their nearby hacking tower), Red-winged Blackbird 2, pelican 3, Great Egret 3, and Marsh Wren 1.  Many hundreds of Seaside Dragonlets and a few Diamondback Terrapin.  
            Because of the wind and falling tide we do not do justice to the east side of the island, where we motor by both before and after our visit to the hammock.
            Holland Island, south segment, east side, 12:30-2:45 P.M.  We deliberately avoid the west side where the pelican/cormorant colony is, having already visited here May 29.  Fresh winds and a lowering tide mandate that we anchor on the extreme south tip of Holland Island, not the very shallow SE side, which is closer to the main areas of interest.
            Highlights: 610 Brown Pelicans ISS (We do not flush any but 4 proggers who had landed from a jet ski do).  145 Black-crowned Night Herons ISS.  8 American Oystercatchers plus 2 downy young, most of these on the island’s south end.  A late Spotted Sandpiper.  5 Clapper Rails, and the best CLRA chorus I’ve heard here.  2 adult and 1 sub-adult Bald Eagle but no sign of an active nest this year.  The young is not a bird of the year.  In most recent years 3 young have been raised by this pair.
            HERONRIES.  1.  A big one in Baccharis, Iva, and Spartina cynosuroides towards the SW end of the island with many, many Snowy Egrets, Little Blue & Tricolored herons, mucho Black-crowned Night Herons, a few Glossy Ibis, and 12 Yellow-crowned Night Herons seen.  2.  Only a few nests in the hammock due east of here, which has large American Hackberries and some Persimmons.  3.  The big heronry is at the north end of the south segment of Holland, which has large hackberries, Persimmons, and a few Black Locusts.  In ascending order of estimated abundance: Great Blue Heron (only 3 seen), Cattle Egret, Glossy Ibis, Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Great Egret, Black-crowned Night Heron, Little Blue Heron, Tricolored Heron, and Snowy Egret.  No Green Herons seen this time.
            Other high ISS counts (by Jared): 75 Snowy Egrets, 51 Tricolored Herons, 35 Great Egrets, and 23 Little Blue Herons, these all in heronry 3.  And don’t they all look so fine and elegant in their nuptial plumage?  Beauties.
            Other species (complete list):  Gadwall 6, Canada Goose a family group of 2 adults with 4 small downy young, Boat-tailed Grackle 8, Osprey 4 (no ground nest, apparently, on the extreme south end this year), Red-winged Blackbird 4, Common Yellowthroat 2, Song 2 and Seaside 10 sparrows, Marsh Wren 5, Willet 6, Fish Crow 6 (low, mercifully, for here), Laughing Gull 1.  Numbers of Herring & Great Black-backed gulls and cormorants unrecorded.  
            Gadwalls continue to make a good showing on these islands, in some cases being the most abundant waterfowl, in contrast to mainland marshes where it seems to me they are in decline, esp. in the Elliott Island and Deal Island wetlands.  Very few Fiddler Crabs, which usually swarm here.       
            Adverse wind and dealing with it prevented us from making a landing on Adam Island.  Maybe on the next trip, planned for the June 21-23 period.  
            “Big Bend” (Route 336 X Edgar Road):  Jared sees a Red-headed Woodpecker fly across the road.  
            Sewards, Blackwater N.W.R.: the dependable American White Pelican is on hand and on its marks c. 5 P.M.
            SALTMARSH SPARROWS.  Several readers commented that I had not mentioned Saltmarsh Sparrows in my report on counting 407 Seaside Sparrows on May 16.  They are here.  But I believe they have declined in the past few years.  Last year Lynn Davidson did a census of them along the Elliott Island Road, finding, I forget, several dozen (?).  This was in connection with seeking Important Bird Area status for E.I.R.  It’s been my impression that for years they have been declining both here and at Deal Island.  I hope I am wrong.
            JUNE 7, MONDAY.  142 Turkey Vultures on the way down from Pennsylvania.  After being displaced from my boat, and then the front door sill, Carolina Wrens now have a nest with 4 eggs in a large flower pot on the north side of the house.  Their 3rd attempt is ensconced in the pot, surrounded by petunias, impatiens, red salvia, and marigolds.  The Black Scoter flock seen from Lucy Point is now down from 11 to 9.  1 Snowy Egret, 1 Red-tailed Hawk (on the old pole in Field 2; later to be seen on the pole in Field 4), 5 deer.  Present from 3:30 P.M. only; fair, NW5 or less, 80 degrees on arrival.
            JUNE 8, TUESDAY.  Liz sees an Eastern Bluebird carrying food.  6 deer.  An Orchard Oriole sings from the trees on the east side of the lawn, as it does every day this visit.  Now that the yard trees are large and there’s much less open space we cannot take this species for granted as a yard nester the way we did for decades previously.  
            JUNE 9, WEDNESDAY.  Find a Northern Cardinal nest with 4 eggs in the hedgerow along the driveway on the south side of Field 4.  A Great Horned Owl streaks along the edge of our shoreline, flying up the cove edge, at dusk.  1 Least Tern, 2 Bald Eagles.  Liz sees 4 young Carolina Chickadees in the yard.  Overcast, 60s – 72, strong SE winds 15-20+ m.p.h. blow a plastic chair off of the dock.  I wade around for half an hour but do not find it.  The 2 Mute Swans again.
            JUNE 10, THURSDAY.  A Great Horned Owl calls 3 times, 8:40-9:05 P.M.  Big chorus of Green Tree Frogs comes from somewhere on the other side of the cove, the first we’ve heard this visit.  2 juvenile Blue Jays in the yard, barely able to fly.  Liz sees a Broadhead Skink in the Magnolia grandiflora; the Peterson field guide does say they’re markedly arboreal.  2 Cow-nosed Rays off of Lucy Point streaking just under the water’s surface.  Today I trim the overhanging vegetation in the yard.  Clear becoming fair, 74-85, SW5 – calm.  
            JUNE 11, FRIDAY.  Leave at 10 A.M.  On the way out the drive: a Wild Turkey, that reluctantly runs out of the way of the car, a Red Fox kit, 4 deer, and several Common Whitetails.  Fair, 69-75 degrees F., NW5, cool.  Typical of Eastern Shore serendipity, by chance we run into 2 contractors who are coming up the drive, Tyler Contracting Company’s Jimmy Tyler, Jr., and tree person Clyde Harding.  On the way home to Philadelphia: 62 Turkey Vultures.  Roadkill Red-bellied Woodpecker and Snapping Turtle along Route 301.  
            SIGNS OF SUMMER.  A few fireflies at Rigby’s Folly.  Lots of Queen Anne’s Lace along the roadsides.  In the cove on the exposed branches of a mostly submerged item are 7 Bluets, 6 of them conjoined pairs.  Along the road shoulders the Chicory is abundant and almost lush.  3 singing Indigo Buntings at Rigby’s Folly.
            Best to all. – Harry Armistead, Philadelphia. 		 	   		  
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