FERRY NECK, BLACKWATER & SWAN HARBOR, OCTOBER 29-NOV. 1, 2010.
            OCTOBER 29, FRIDAY.  80 some sparrows and 7 deer while going in the driveway plus 45 robins in the yard.
            OCTOBER 30, SATURDAY.  RIGBY’S FOLLY/FERRY NECK – MIDDLE DISTANCE MIGRANTS JAMBOREE.  Lots around today, especially middle distance migrants, many seen even though I don’t leave the yard until after noon.  Middle distance wonders: 3 flickers, 1 Tree Swallow, 1 Eastern Phoebe, 8 Blue Jays, 12 robins, 1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet, 40 Cedar Waxwings, 3 Hermit Thrushes, 2 Purple Finches, 1 Brown Creeper, 30 Myrtle Warblers, 20 goldfinches, 16 House Finches, and 8 bluebirds plus the following 9 sparrow species (out of c. 250 individuals seen): junco, White-throated & Song sparrow tied for 1st place, then 20 Chipping Sparrows, 3 towhees 1 imm. White-crowned Sparrow, 1 Swamp Sparrow, 1 Fox Sparrow & 1 Field Sparrow.  Savannah Sparrow is a surprising, unlikely miss, but one can’t achieve a grand slam every time.    
            Also: 7 Common Loons, 3 cormorants, 1 Great Blue Heron, 10 Surf Scoters, 7 Forster’s Terns (1 successfully kleptoparasitized by a Laughing Gull) and 3 Royal Terns.  At sunset at least 840 gulls are in a feeding frenzy way out on the Choptank River mouth towards Cook’s Point.  Only 3 fishing boats are out there to cash in on this maelstrom of activity.  
            RAPTORS:  24 Turkey & 5 Black vultures, 5 Sharp-shinned, 1 Cooper’s & 4 Red-tailed hawks, 5 Bald Eagles, and 1 Northern Harrier for a total of 45.
            Fair becoming mostly overcast, 46-59, NW15 – SW15 – SSW 20.  5 deer including a buck with a left antler much lower-shorter than the right antler, 3 Gray Squirrels.
            BUTTERFLIES: 2 Buckeyes, 1 Red Admiral, 1 Cabbage White, 1 Monarch, 3 unID’d sulphurs, and 3 unID’d anglewings (presumed to be Question Marks).  Not bad for a cool day that is almost November. 
            the TALE OF THE BIG OAK, R.I.P.:  Earlier this summer the big oak next to our driveway died, the largest tree (in girth) on our property.  I measured its circumference then at 13 feet, 11 inches.  This tree’s passing has made me so sad.  It still bears this year’s leaves, which became brown in late summer.  Thanks to Zeeger de Wilde, one of Blackwater’s star volunteers, he and two others examined the tree today.  I would have joined them but my mistake was in thinking they’d come to the house first, where I waited around until noon.  
            But Zeeger, Richard E. Hines (Refuge Manager, Cross Creeks National Wildlife Refuge, Dover, Tennessee) and Jamie Kellum (Forester for the Blackwater N.W.R. complex) examined the tree.  Richard and Jamie worked together for 10 years at White River N.W.R. in Arkansas.  It was hoped to do a core from the tree to determine its age but they feared rot in the tree, which would endanger the instrument used to obtain the core.  They identified the oak as a Cherrybark Oak (Quercus pagoda), also known as Pagoda Oak or Swamp Red Oak, here very close to the extreme northern limit of its natural range.  
            They suspect it “died of old age,” and estimated that to be 200-250 years.  Currently it is afflicted with Hypoxilon Canker, a “secondary disease.”  They prepared a written report on the tree including the page from the Sibley tree guide (p. 189) plus some photographs and a text description of Hypoxilon Canker.  Their measurement of the DBH (diameter breast high): 53.1 inches.  I thank them all for a most professional job, well done, and am most sorry to have missed their visit.  On Sunday I ran into Richard at Blackwater, not realizing he’d been to Rigby’s Folly, but overheard him talking about White River N.W.R.  I asked him how many Ivory-billed Woodpeckers he’d seen there.  His answer was none.  Most of the reports that begat the intense searching by Cornell University and others were north of White River at Bayou de View, where I spent 2 memorable weeks as a volunteer searcher, but with no ivorybill sightings to show for it.   
            OCTOBER 31, SUNDAY.  I almost hit a large buck on Route 50 near Trappe at 6 A.M.  Six House Sparrows are already foraging around the Cambridge Wawa a few minutes later.:
            DORCHESTER COUNTY, MD:
            BLACKWATER N.W.R., 7:15 A.M. – 1:15 P.M.  14 of us on the birdwalk: Amy Berks, Britta Hall, Stella Hartington, Bill Hill, Jane Hill, John Krustins, Bill Mattimore, Dan Mellis, Daniel Spikes, Janet Spikes, Heidi Stack, Maureen Weaver, Levin Willey & me.  Even by emptying 2 cars’ passengers into mine there are still 8 vehicles.  Tidal water very low.  Impounded water high.  Highlights:
            1 ad. Snow Goose, 2 American Black Ducks, 1 American Black Duck X Mallard hybrid, 70 Northern Pintails, 1 ♂ Northern Shoveler, 400 Green-winged Teal, 8 American Wigeon,  22 Double-crested Cormorants, 6 Great Blue Herons, 3 Red-tailed Hawks, 3 Northern Harriers, 14 Bald Eagles, 2 American Coots (Pool 1), 2 Virginia Rails, 35 Dunlin, 3 Wilson’s Snipe, 45 Forster’s Terns, 1 imm. Bonaparte’s Gull (landed with the terns on the Sewards “Christmas tree reef”), 2 Pileated Woodpeckers, 175 Tree Swallows, 3 Brown-headed Nuthatches, 1 Hermit Thrush, 28 Cedar Waxwings, 18 Chipping and 2 imm. White-crowned sparrows, 6 Black Vultures, 20 Killdeer, 1 Eastern Phoebe, 4 Pine Siskins (at the feeders), 18 House Finches, and 12 American Goldfinches.
            NON-AVIAN TAXA: 2 Gray & 1 Fox squirrel.  4 Red Admirals & 5 Buckeyes.  Here and elsewhere in Dorchester County I am surprised by how much Queen Anne’s Lace is still in flower.
            A mockingbird at the Visitor Center imitates a Virginia Rail (kiddick call). 
            SWAN HARBOR ROAD, at the hawkwatch place, midway between the 2 woodlands and located in the middle of the saltmarsh stretch of the road.  A most successful if brief hawk count, 1:45-3:15 P.M.  Fair becoming clear, 70 or so degrees F., NW 15+ m.p.h.  Raptors flying INTO the wind, headed NORTH.  Jane & Bill Hill accompany me here.  269 raptors in 90 minutes.  If one discounts the problematic vultures 135 raptors still remain.  With this many raptors in just an-hour-and-a-half in the middle of the afternoon imagine what a full day or full season might produce.  I wish some others would count here once in a while:
            Sharp-shinned Hawk 68, Red-tailed Hawk 43, Cooper’s Hawk 6, Red-shouldered Hawk 4, Bald Eagle 7, American Kestrel 5, Northern Harrier 2, Black Vulture 3, and Turkey Vulture 131.  TOTAL: 269.
            Also: 2 Common Loons (high overhead in migration), 1 Clapper Rail, 1 Monarch, 1 Red Admiral, 5 Buckeyes.  
            TAR BAY (as seen by the Hills & me from the Birchmeiers’ dock):  550 Double-crested Cormorants, hundreds of gulls, 4 Dunlin, 31 Sanderlings, 9 Bald Eagles, 1 Brown-headed Nuthatch, 7 Slate-colored Juncos, 7 White-throated Sparrows, 3 Song Sparrows, and, as we are leaving, an imm. ♂ Merlin shoots, blasts, through the yard a few feet off of the ground, a feathered jet.  Tide very low.  
            On the way back to Rigby’s Folly: 4 deer in Royal Oak at 5:25 P.M., a 4-point buck in our Field 4 at 5:35 P.M., and a dense mass of 110 Laughing Gulls huddled on the mud in the very low water of our cove.  Tide out 18’ from the base of the dock.    
            NOVEMBER 1, MONDAY.  Clear, cold, NE5+.  Just close down the house and drive home in beautiful fall weather.  A Bald Eagle over Route 33 X Leehaven Road.
            CORRECTION.  In Talbot County by R. Jerry Keiser & Barbara Thompson Lewis (Arcadia Publishing, 2006, 127 pages; part of the Images of America series).  A great collection of old photographs.  Not very birdy.  The bottom photograph on page 79 shows 2 boats full of fish. “Fishing with nets is still done in the bay.  This photograph shows two net-fishing boats with crews proudly displaying their catch for the day, including a Canadian [sic] goose.”  The bird shown is a Common Loon.  
            Best to all. – Harry Armistead, Philadelphia.