SOUTH MARSH ISLAND (Black Rail? No), SPRING ISLAND & FERRY NECK, June 21-25, 2010.  An almost unbearably hot and humid stretch with the beginnings of a drought.
            TUESDAY, JUNE 22.  Sewards, Blackwater N.W.R., American White Pelican 1.  Wildlife Drive at Blackwater, 4 rabbits; an ad. Bald Eagle chases an Osprey with a fish but the Osprey prevails.  Two Willets fly parallel to our car at Lakesville (Route 336) X Andrews roads; we’re easily able to clock them at 35 m.p.h., a d.o.r. Red Fox nearby.
            A 32.3 mile boat trip with Jared Sparks (get c. 4.95 m.p.g. this time).  Temperatures high 80s to low 90s, calm at first then SW or SSW 10-15, fair, high tide at c. 10:45 A.M., water temperatures in the low 80s.  Hot but not overwhelmingly so.  Greenheads not bad.  
            Bloodsworth Island, SE end, a Royal Tern and a Brown Pelican.  
            SOUTH MARSH ISLAND AREAS (Somerset County, MD):
            South Marsh Island, hammock and saltmeadow in the interior of the SE part of the island, 10:15A.M. – noon.  12.3 miles (in 45 minutes) from the launch site at Crocheron).  The welcoming committee consists of a Saltmarsh Skipper that alights on top of the outboard motor.  Our objective is to play Black Rail recordings for one hour (10:40-11:40 A.M.) to try to elicit a response.  NO LUCK.  Please understand that I do not do this in mainland marshes.  I suspect no one has ever tried for BLRA on S. Marsh I. before and may never again, so I submit that this intrusive procedure is justified just this once.  Jared and I maintain stations circa 100 yards apart in what would seem to be optimal BLRA habitat.
            Complete bird list for this seldom-visited area:  1 Snowy & 5 Great egrets, 8 Glossy Ibis, 1 Song, 1 Saltmarsh & 7 Seaside sparrows, 2 Boat-tailed Grackles, 1 Peregrine Falcon (at its hacking tower), 1 Yellow-crowned Night, 1 Black-crowned Night, 1 Tricolored, 2 Great Blue & 2 Little Blue herons, 4 Marsh Wrens, 2 Ospreys, 4 Red-winged Blackbirds, 1 Common Yellowthroat, 1 Northern Harrier, 1 Royal Tern, 1 Double-crested Cormorant, and 1 Fish Crow.  None of the heron types seemed to be breeding here.  Just west of the little west pond is a patch of blooming mint that we had not noticed on our previous trip on June 8.  Countless 100s of Seaside Dragonlets, many of them resting on shrubs and marsh grass (and sometimes on us).    
            Small island just n. of where the old hunt club used to be, perhaps 2 acres, central part of the island’s east side, 12:15 P.M.  NO birds.  I was hoping to flush a nesting duck.  Has meadows of Distichlis spicata and Spartina patens plus some Juncus roemerianus (on the south end, where there is Baccharis halimifolia and Iva frutescens) interspersed with some Seaside Goldenrod.  There are some nice, small sandy ridges on the SW end that are well-vegetated.
            Small island where hunt club used to be, notable for its old pilings, 12:20 P.M., on top of which 26 cormorants, 17 pelicans, 8 Herring & 4 Laughing gulls, and a Royal Tern are resting.  Don’t seem to be any breeding birds here.  In the 1970s I once found an active Fish Crow nest on the 2nd floor deck of the hunt club, while inside Barn Swallows were nesting around the bathroom medicine cabinet 3 rooms back from the open front door.
            South Marsh Island, roughly the northern half by drawing a line west to east right through the middle, 12:25-1:50 P.M.  An area I’ve only visited a few times previously.  Waters are comparatively deep off the NE side, shallow off the NW side.  Not much diversity, mostly pure needlerush bordered by Spartina alterniflora and with only a few shrubs and small, narrow beaches.  The island’s other hacking tower is here, with a pair of Peregrine Falcons in residence.
            Other birds, complete list:  American Oystercatcher (4 pairs plus a single), 5 Gadwalls, 7 American Black Ducks, 4 Mallards, 2 Ospreys, 2 Royal Terns, 1 Seaside Sparrow (we do not land; otherwise would have seen/heard many seasides, I am sure), 4 Little Blue, 2 Great Blue, 1 Yellow-crowned Night & 1 Tricolored heron, 4 pelicans, 6 Herring Gulls, and 7 Great Egrets.  In shallow Pry Cove there is a good growth of SAV, which looked to be Ruppia maritima (Widgeon Grass).  40 Diamondback Terrapin.  As on June 8 no Willets seen and I am surprised to see ducks of 3 species apparently doing O.K. under the baleful glare of the falcons.
            Spring Island, Dorchester County (part of Blackwater N.W.R.), 2:05-2:40 P.M:  Complete bird list:  4 American Oystercatchers (1 with a 3’ strand of monofilament line trailing from one of its legs), 2 Ospreys (sitting on top of the remains of the hacking tower), 9 pelicans, 8 cormorants, 1 Great Egret, 1 Gadwall, 2 Great Black-backed Gulls (plus 2 downy young), 6 Herring Gulls, 4 Seaside Sparrow, 1 Tricolored & 1 Little Blue heron plus 20 Diamondback Terrapin. 
            MONDAY, JUNE 21.  A ♂ Cooper’s Hawk in DE just n. of the DE-Chesapeake Canal.  122 Turkey Vultures on the way down.  Present at Rigby’s Folly only from 4 P.M.  94-84 degrees F., fair, SW 5.  
            TUESDAY, JUNE 22.  Liz sees a doe & fawn right in the yard.  Jared & I see 2 Wild Turkeys in Field 4.  
            WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23.  Clear, 74-93, 86 at 9:30 P.M., SW<5.  Recover from yesterday.  Too hot to do much else.  4 deer, 1 Wild Turkey.
            THURSDAY, JUNE 24.  Fair, 74-99, SW5+.  Flush a Great Horned Owl while walking along the Irish Creek Trail late in the afternoon.  Trim edges of the entire driveway plus the Warbler Trail 9 A.M. – noon.  Trim Irish Creek, Choptank River, Pond, and Lucy Point trails 5:15-6:15 P.M.  A brief thunder and lightning storm with strong winds and only 5 minutes of rain c. 6:15 P.M.  The doe and her fawn are on the lawn again.  
            FRIDAY, JUNE 25.  NW5-10, much lower humidity, fair.  Liz sees 80 Canada Geese in the cove plus a Tree Swallow, and an ad. Bald Eagle chasing an Osprey.  A Yellow-billed Cuckoo calls in the yard.  Leave for PA at 10 A.M.  See 52 Turkey Vultures on the way home.
                        CHINO FARMS HERMIT THRUSH STUDY appears in North American bird bander, Jan.-March 2010, vol. 35, no. 1, pages 1-4, “Site fidelity and a longevity record of wintering Hermit Thrushes in Maryland,” authored by some folks we know: Maren Gimpel, Dan Small, and Jim Gruber (Foreman’s Branch Bird Observatory).  They report on 1,502 (!!) Hermit Thrushes banded since 1998.  59 were overwintering individuals, 26 returned in a subsequent winter, one of them setting a species longevity record of 10 years, 10 months.
            WASHINGTON POST nature notes, Tuesday, June 22, 2010.  When Liz and I are at Rigby’s Folly we are mostly insulated and isolated from the news.  There’s no TV, only a rudimentary radio, but by chance we got a copy of the Tue., June 22, Post, which has some items of interest.  
            1:  Maryland’s Bruce Beehler, with Conservation International, who I believe found Dorchester County’s first Upland Sandpiper many years ago, was on an expedition to “a remote, mountainous area of Indonesia” with National Geographic Society and Smithsonian Institution scientists.  They discovered some new species, 6 of which are shown by color photographs in the Post (p. C10): an imperial pigeon, a bent-toed yellow-eyed gecko, a tree frog with a sort of proboscis, a wooly giant rat, the world’s smallest (known) wallaby, and a (way cute) tree mouse.  Amazing, especially since these are all vertebrates.  There’s an article on this in the June National geographic, apparently, but my copy is misplaced.  
            2: There’s also a description of attaching transmitters to Purple Martins in Woodbridge, VA, to determine where they go and the pace of their migrations.  In the case of one PA bird this was 4,400 miles in 13 days.  The folks mentioned in the article (p. B2) are Nanette Mickle, Tom Wood, Jessie Needham, Julia Nord, and Caryl Buck. 
            JERSEY SHORE INTERLUDE.  Liz and I are guests of Capt. Carl & Dr. Carroll Sheppard in Beach Haven, NJ, June 17-19.  Go out on Carl’s charterboat ‘Star Fish’ on June 18 to c. 9 mi. offshore.  The party catches c. 20 Black Sea Bass keepers and perhaps 30 throwbacks.  All of us catch sea bass doubles, two at once, several times.  
            Lots of exposed mud on the flats in Little Egg Harbor bay and the Holgate unit of Forsythe N.W.R. (“Brigantine”) that are loaded with oystercatchers.  6 sub-adult Northern Gannets offshore.  1 Peregrine Falcon.  On an old dredge spoil island in the bay there’s a thriving colony of egrets, herons, and ibis.  A few Osprey nests near “Tuckerton” (Great Bay Boulevard Wildlife Management Area).  
            On the beach a few House Sparrows, Rock Pigeons, and Common Grackles forage right in the intertidal zone.  On the way to and from the shore we see only 13 and 5 Turkey Vultures respectively, perhaps due to the almost total lack of roadkills (as well as open and farm land) along routes 70 & 72, very heavily-traveled roads, indicative of, as beautiful as they are, the rather depauperate nature of the Pinelands.
            Best to all. – Harry Armistead, Philadelphia.   		 	   		  
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