FERRY NECK, HOLLAND ISLAND, BLACKWATER N.W.R., AUGUST 18-23, 2010.  POMARINE JAEGER (description at the very end).  Liz & Harry Armistead. 
            AUGUST 18, Wednesday.  19 Turkey Vultures on the way down, others grounded and out of sight due to the soggy weather.  Present from 3:35 P.M. only.  19 Wild Turkeys, 11 bluebirds, 31 cowbirds, 3 adult Bald Eagles, 13 Bobolinks, 1 Great Horned Owl (calling from Woods 7 at 5 P.M.)  A half-hearted chorus of Green Tree Frogs calling from The Pond.   
            There’s been big rain earlier today, 2”+ I’d guess, with much consequent standing water in the fields, the 3 small ponds are full, ditches flowing, and gratifying wetness everywhere.  As a result lots of the berries, fruit, etc., from the Black Gums, Red Cedars, and Persimmons lie on the ground, as well as Loblolly Pine “fronds.”  Overcast, NE-NW5+. 74°F., light rain again 6:15 P.M.  1 Red Fox, 12 deer (6 does, 4 fawns, 2 bucks), and a Gray Squirrel.  Trails, driveway, and lawn mowed recently, probably yesterday.     
            AUGUST 19, Thursday.  NORTHERN BOBWHITE, 1♂, close on the driveway and later heard calling once from the Irish Creek Trail.  A rarity now.  Entire years go by w/o a sighting.  In an extensive wet area of Field 4 are 2 Least Sandpipers and 2 Lesser Yellowlegs.  Also today: a Yellow Warbler, 29 Canada Geese, 80 Red-winged Blackbirds, 40 cowbirds, 1 American Redstart, a Prairie Warbler, 1 Great & 2 Snowy egrets, a Traill’s Flycatcher, a hummingbird, and 11 Blue-gray Gnatcatchers (previous property high count: 9 on 3 dates - 9.12.76, 8.29.82 and 8.30.87).   
            There’s 2” of water in Lake Olszewski and a small, baby Snapping Turtle.  2 Gray Squirrels,  1 fawn.  2 Diamondback Terrapin.  Coming up the driveway John Weske sees 13 Wild Turkeys, Dave Brinker an opossum.  John and Dave overnight with us.  Fair, 74-88, NW5-SW5, all’s soggy, hot and humid.  1 Sphinx Moth.   
            BUTTERFLIES:  15 species -  3 Tiger Swallowtails, 3 Common Wood Nymphs, 2 Red Admirals, 3 Monarchs, 1 Orange Sulphur, 6 Cabbage Whites, 4 Red-spotted Purples, 3 Delaware Skippers, 1 American Lady, 1 Question Mark, 4 Spicebush Swallowtails, 1 Eastern Tailed Blue, 4 Buckeyes, 2 Silver-spotted Skippers, and 4 unID’d skippers. 
            WORCESTER COUNTY PELICAN COLONY.  Today Dave Brinker and others visit the pelican colony on Big Bay Marsh, MD, in Chincoteague Bay e. of Truitt’s Landing and Mills Island, NE of Assacorkin (don’t ask; if I knew I’d tell you) Island.  From Dave’s writeup:  They banded 39 chicks; 8 were too small to band.  This colony consists of c. 24 pairs.  On June 29 there were but 16 nests with 32 eggs.  Today they found a new colony in a different part of Big Bay Marsh that was not there on June 29, with 35 nests, 4 with eggs, the remainder with young.  He estimates some of these will not fledge until late October!  Big Bay Marsh in 2010 has the largest Brown Pelican ever found on the Maryland coast, 59 pairs.  The next biggest: 26 pairs in 1989.  There were no nests on the MD coats 1996-2004. 
            AUGUST 20, Friday.  Liz sees the 13 Wild Turkeys again, an adult Bald Eagle, 6 Diamondback Terrapin, and a young Five-lined Skink.  In Field 4 in the late afternoon I see a Solitary and 5 Least Sandpipers.  1 fawn.  
            SOUTHERN DORCHESTER COUNTY: 6:30 a.m. – 4 p.m.  Clear, 74-94, NW5 or calm.  
            Malkus Bridge/Choptank River.  Even from the car several schools of Menhaden are easily visible at 6:06 A.M.     
            Route 16 X Stone Boundary Road, south side of Cambridge.  On the south side of 16 where there is a sort of pond and new, white, plastic fencing vultures have taken to sit on the fence and thereabouts.  This morning there are 23 Black and 6 turkey vultures. 
            Egypt Road:  45 Barn Swallows on the wires, 1 American Kestrel. 
            Blackwater N.W.R., 2 brief visits before and after boating.  An imm. Red-headed Woodpecker on its belly on the ground across from Pool 1 apparently feeding on ants as if it were a flicker.  2 Red-tailed Hawks (on phone poles).  1 Spotted Sandpiper.  1 Greater Yellowlegs.  11 cormorants.  3 Caspian Terns.  37 Forster’s Terns.  Butterflies: 5 Cloudless Sulphurs, 5 Monarchs.  A small fawn crosses Key Wallace Drive at 1:54 P.M.              The fine old house at the end of Wildlife Drive X Route 335 with the wraparound porch has been demolished.  I’d heard it was too expensive to fix up, was full of asbestos.  I used to photograph it back in the 1960s.  Even then it was deserted.  Only 6 Bald Eagles.  2 rabbits, A Gray Squirrel. 
            Crocheron harbor.  53 Royal Terns, about the most I’ve ever seen here.  Some carry bands, John’s no doubt.   
            HOLLAND SIALND: Dave Brinker, John Weske, Cindy Driscoll, Molly Billmyre, Stacy Etterson & I band 53 pelican chicks, 31 of them tested for West Nile Virus.  At least ½ of the unbanded chicks escape into the water.  1 nest has 2 eggs, another 2 small young.  810 big pelicans in sight simultaneously.  Dave discovers a new colony in Baccharis and trees off the south end of the north hammock, where I see up to 75 flight-capable pelicans high up in the trees. 
            Also:  A Peregrine falcon, a harrier, 2 Semipalmated & 3 Least sandpipers, 7 Black-crowned & 5 Yellow-crowned night herons, 2 oystercatchers, 6 Clapper Rails, 1 Fish Crow, 4 Boat-tailed Grackles, a Seaside Sparrow, 2 Barn Swallows, 8 Mallards, 2 Buckeyes, and 4 Monarchs.   
            SHORTER’S WHARF ROAD.  Quick drive through.  17 Snowy Egrets, 3 black ducks, 1 Mallard, 2 Least Sandpipers.  1 Buckeye.  The pink marsh hibiscus is as luxuriant as I’ve ever seen it.  So is the Marsh Hemp, some of it 7’-8’ high. 
            A 5 TURTLE DAY.  Miss Spotted and Box turtles.  A Mud Turtle at Shorter’s Wharf Road, another on Egypt Road.  At Blackwater 2 Red-bellied Sliders and 6 Painted Turtles.  4 Diamondback Terrapin around Holland Island.  Near Wingate a big ol’ Snappin’ Turkle amblin’ & ramblin’ & shamblin’ down the road.  Poor choice of a commute route.  Y’all s’posed to CROSS the road, otherwise yuh end up buckin’ to be buzzard bait.  Why did the chicken cross the road?  To show the armadillo (‘possum, skunk, ‘coon, snappin’ turkle et al.) that it CAN be done.   
            Afterwards John Weske leaves for Ocracoke, NC, where he, Julie Kacmarcik, Micou Browne, and Sarah will band 256 pelican chicks on Saturday at Beacon I., NC.  Only 50 were expected! 
            AUGUST 21, Saturday.  We trim an Osage Orange hanging low over the driveway: tough, nasty, thorny wood to work with.  A large Persimmon on the Irish Creek Trail snapped off halfway up, blocking the trail until we remove it.  4 Gray Squirrels.  3 fawns.  1 imm. Bald Eagle.  3 Bank Swallows (migrants).  1 ♂ Blue Grosbeak.  3 Semipalmated Plovers coming from the north.  21 Cedar Waxwings.  3 Bobolinks.  1 kingfisher - only one seen this visit.  1 Hairy Woodpecker.  The low area in Field 4 has 7 Least Sandpipers, the low area in Field 1 has a Least and 2 Solitary sandpipers.  
            BUTTERFLIES: 5 Buckeyes, 3 Delaware Skippers, 2 unID’d azures, 2 Common Wood Nymphs, 5 Monarchs (there’s a small flight each day, on their way to Mexico), 2 Red Admirals, 3 Spicebush Swallowtails, 4 Cabbage Whites, 4 Red-spotted Purples.   
            Clear but hazy, 74-90, calm or NE 5 – S5, hot, humid.  Only 2 Diamondback Terrapin.  
            AUGUST 22, Sunday.  Field 4’s wet area has 5 Least and 2 Solitary sandpipers.  3 adult & 1 immature Bald Eagle.  Two good views of a (the?) adult male Cooper’s Hawk.  8 Eastern Kingbirds – ties the 6th, 7th & 8th highest property counts - 3 of which chase the Coop.  13 Ospreys in sight simultaneously.  145 cowbirds.  5 unID’d peep.  8 cardinals.  2 Least Skippers. 
            Overcast becoming fair, then overcast again, 73-89, SE10-15-20-5, 2 periods of brief, light rain.  Today I trim overhanging vege the entire length of the driveway plus the Warbler Trail – unpleasant, hot, humid, but looks nice when finished.    
            AUGUST 23, Monday.  Leave for Philadelphia at 10 A.M.  83 Turkey Vultures on the way home.  At the head of the cove a Bald Eagle gives chase to an Osprey carrying a fish.  When the eagle gets 20 feet underneath it, the Osprey releases its fish, the eagle turns slightly, catches it deftly in mid-air!  Question Mark.  1 Red Admiral.  Today’s sky is a beauty, a summer Saskatchewan sky on a fair day, it’s cooler, less humid, the clouds march over us from out of the north.  Hard to leave on a day like this but this morning, as with the others, we nurse our coffee out on the dock, watching the scene.  Temps in the 70s.    
            GREAT HORNED OWLS – a major pain.  Dave Brinker describes how this year great horneds have COMPLETELY disrupted the small Royal Tern colony on Skimmer Island as well as the large Common Tern colony on Poplar Island.  According to Great Horned Owl by Dwight G. Smith there’s a record of one killing a Bobcat.  They also snare Porcupines and skunks., kill and eat Barred Owls. 
            BLACKWATER REFUGE – PARTIAL CLOSURES OF WILDLIFE DRIVE.  Repaving is scheduled that will close the W.D. “Spur Road” September 7-12 as well as W.D. from the entrance to Headquarters September 13-19.  If this matters check with the refuge to make certain it is/isn’t on schedule.  Around the Visitor Center there is active drilling to make many wells for a new geothermal heating/cooling system.   
            LYME DISEASE.  I’ve got it.  Just finished a 21-day regimen of Doxycyclene Cyclamate 100 mg. capsules.  We’ll see what happens now.  My thanks to Abigail Higgins for bringing my attention to this article about LD in Yankee.  
  
http://www.yankeemagazine.com/issues/2007-07/features/lymecountry/1 
    
             
  
            PREJUDICE AGAINST LISTERS.  Many birders harbor a prejudice against high-powered listers that in many cases I think is unjustified.  The listers are said to just check off a new bird as soon as they see it and then immediately leave.  For them it’s on to the next conquest.  But most of the big time listers I know have a great aesthetic appreciation of both the beauty of birds and the appeal of the unique places they inhabit.  They are full of wonder and knowledge about plants, butterflies, and scenery.   
            The prejudice reminds me of the displeasure towards the great sprinter, Abrams, in the wonderful movie ‘Chariots of Fire.’  He was disdained by the Cambridge dons and others because he approached his running in too professionally, trained hard, and had a trainer.  He wasn’t amateur enough for them.  I’ve encountered this sort of thing among some of those I call genteel birders, who consider it ungentlemanly to be TOO involved or TOO good at birding.  I think many folks who dismiss the big listers suffer from ignorance and are unwilling to make much of an effort birding.  But I do agree that some listers are compulsive misfits lacking appreciation for the birds they chase. 
            Paul Sykes called Thursday evening.  He is an example of a high-powered lister who has a fine appreciation of birds and their environments.  He is full of the fun of his birding exploits.  Paul had just been to Alaska and Kamchatka, was at Attu for the 14th time, getting ready to return to Alaska in a few days, this time to St. Lawrence Island.  This trip netted him 2 life birds, Short-tailed Albatross and Mottled Petrel.  Counting some birds he has “in escrow” (e.g. some recent splits) his North American lifelist if 872!  Bob Ake is another friend and lister who can’t be dismissed very easily from the realms of the aesthetics and pure enjoyment of birding.  As of yesterday his North American 2010 list is 691!    
            APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA.  The dead, stranded turtle I reported from South Marsh Island on June was a Loggerhead Turtle not a Leatherback.  Folks from the Oxford Lab checked it out in response to my report.  They take measurements, tissue samples, etc., of Loggerheads, too, so I didn’t completely waste their time.  Seen from a pitching boat at some distance, there is some excuse for my getting it wrong.            
            POMARINE JAEGER.  At about 6 P.M. on Sunday, August 22, I observed the jaeger from our property shoreline at Lucy Point, on Ferry Neck, Talbot County (near the town of Bellevue) over a period of c. 10 minutes.  Twice I saw it perform extended chases of single Laughing Gulls for c. 15 seconds each, reminding me of the frequent chases we saw in Churchill, Manitoba, of Parasitic Jaegers vs. Arctic Terns at Cape Merry.  The jaeger was very dark, most likely a juvenile, although the extreme darkness suggested a non-breeding dark morph, and robust but with long, pointed, falcon-like wings.  It was extremely agile.   
            Present in this area (between Cooks and Black Walnut Points) were a maximum of 43 Laughing Gulls (the most I saw there in the period Aug. 19-22).  The jaeger was easily seen to be larger and much darker than the gulls.  Closer to shore were 9 Royal and 3 Forster’s terns, also the most of these in the same time frame.  The gulls and terns were in all likelihood feeding on schools of (“peanut”) Menhaden, which have been increasingly visible in this area in the past few weeks.  No Herring, Ring-billed, or Great Black-backed gulls were present, although a few HEGU and RBGU had been present in the nearby cove in front of our house.   
            “Poms” are said to have short tails (discounting the 2 twisted retrices of the adults, which this bird didn’t seem to have, although at this distance they would have been hard to see) but, perhaps because it was spreading its tail to increase its maneuverability during the chases, its tail seemed much more conspicuous and substantial than those of the gulls.     
            Here’s the rub(s): unseen were the whitish bases of the primaries, held to be more conspicuous in this species than with other jaegers spp.  Furthermore, I’d say the bird was at least a mile away (but that’s reduced to the approximate naked eye equivalent of c. 530 feet with my 10 X 42 Swarovskis).  According to the 3rd ed. of the “Yellow Book” this report is just barely within the period of occurrence of this species in MD.  The Virginia “Gold Book” (Rottenborn & Brinkley) lists their most expected period of occurrence as Sep. 1-Nov. 20.  Pomarines are more often seen well offshore (at sea) than Parasitic Jaegers, adding to the unusual nature of my report.   
            I’ve previously seen Pomarine Jaegers in California, Maryland, New Jersey, Newfoundland, North Carolina, Virginia, and likely elsewhere in locales I’ve forgotten.    The sky was overcast, there was a light wind, I was looking SW into the mouth of the Choptank River, and the sun, concealed by clouds, was about 45° to my right, but visibility was excellent. Written Aug. 24, expanded from my notes of Aug. 22.  
            Best to all. – Harry Armistead, Philadelphia.