BLACKWATER N.W.R., S. DORCHESTER COUNTY & FERRY NECK, MARCH 26-28, 2011.  EURASIAN GREEN-WINGED TEAL.
            SATURDAY, MARCH 26.  Getting there: Route 495, the Wilmington, DE bypass: a Peregrine Falcon over the highway and an Osprey carrying a fish.  Good Red-tailed Hawk show on the way down including 2 sitting on the ground, one in the center strip, the other on the nearby road shoulder of Route 301.  21 Green-winged Teal in the Route 481 pond S of Hope.  100 greenwings and a pair of Blue-winged Teal in the pond near the intersection of routes 481 X 309.  3 Wild Turkeys right in Royal Oak, one taking flight and missing the windshield by a foot.  
            Present only in the afternoon at Rigby’s Folly.  Clear becoming fair, NW 10-5, 45-50-43°F., cold.
            Deer: 10 in a field opposite John Swaine’s driveway, 14 at Frog Hollow, 6 in Field 4, and, from our dock, 5 visible in a field across Irish Creek.  6 Painted Turtles basking on one log in the vernal pool of Woods 4.  
            From Lucy Point, visibility is merely O.K. but visible are 430 Surf Scoters, 7 Horned Grebes, 5 Double-crested Cormorants (the 1st of the year for here), 2 Northern Gannets, and 2 Common Loons.  No Forster’s Terns yet from our shoreline; they’re overdue.  I have not seen any Winter Jellyfish this year, which is curious.  
            Also here: 7 Ospreys, 12 Turkey Vultures, 1 imm. Bald Eagle (from now on I will only report Bald Eagles seen at some distance from the Frog Hollow nest, at least while the eagles are open for business there), 35 Lesser Scaup, 30 Buffleheads, and an adult Red-tailed Hawk.  2 Gray Squirrels.
            Finally get around to measuring some of the bigger trees in the hedgerow on the S side of our driveway (circumferences).  One Loblolly Pine is 8’ 8.5”.  The 2 biggest Eastern Redcedars are 11’ 7” and 8’ 4”.  No, these are not state champion trees - we’re not aspiring to Tensas or Congaree standards - but they’re among the biggest on our property.  
            The cedars have a lot of Greenbrier (Smilax) festooning the trunks so getting a tape around them is somewhat like infiltrating an enclosure surrounded by concertina wire, or, a very mild form of keelhauling.  The big cedar is largely hollow; in previous years it was inhabited by Raccoons.  Because cedars have such dense “foliage” they catch wind like a sail and frequently blow over as a consequence.   
            SUNDAY, MARCH 27.  southern Dorchester County.  God’s country.  109 birding miles by car:
            6:11 A.M.  A fine looking Red Fox streaks across the road, close, in front of the car right in Royal Oak.  Heavy snow.  Many birds seem energized by the snow, or by having to deal with it, especially robins, the snipe, blackbirds, and sparrows, the landbirds gathering on the roadsides or in the lee of buildings.
            Cambridge.  7 A.M.  While I provision at the Wawa an American Robin is singing away the entire time during the heavy, blowing snow.  Once again it’s time to trot out that old chestnut, Thomas Hardy’s ‘Darking thrush’: “So little cause for carolings of such ecstatic sound/Was written on terrestrial things afar or nigh around/That I could think there trembled through his happy good night air [well … O.K. … good morning air]/Some blessed hope whereof he knew and I was unaware.”  Whatever. 
            Blackwater N.W.R., 7:30 A.M. - 1:30 P.M.  Birdwalk from 8 – 1:15.  Birdwalk participants: Charlie Andrews, Diane Cole, Bill & Jane Hill, Fluryanne & Melvin Leach, Elin Quigley & myself.  Considering the weather I’m surprised anyone shows, and some that do come from the western shore.  There’s no stopping the intrepid.  Heavy snow (wet, heavy, large flakes) until c. 8:45 accumulating an inch in some spots, 28-40°F., overcast becoming fair, NE 10 becoming calm then NW 10-15.  All water levels high.
            After the snow stops all of the trees are completely coated including the NE sides of their trunks, which are plastered with the stuff.  Under these conditions Blackwater is as lovely this morning as I’ve ever seen it, a fairyland of exquisite beauty.  Some of the tops of the weed stalks, especially the hibiscus, look like fields of cotton.  But by mid-morning the snowy festival has largely dissipated, except for well-shaded areas.  At day’s end there’s still a little snow remaining in the deep woods.  
            Complete list - 61 species (a few of these seen before or after the official birdwalk):
            Canada Goose 6 (that’s right), Wood Duck 3, Green-winged Teal 315, American Black Duck 8, Mallard 60, Northern Pintail 3, Blue-winged Teal 3, Northern Shoveler 295, Gadwall 46 (a lot for here), Bufflehead 1♂, Hooded Merganser 3♀ (Pool 1), Pied-billed Grebe 2, American White Pelican 1 (the Sewards individual; sometimes disappears out-of-sight farther up the Little Blackwater River I am told; 15 minutes after seeing it I could not relocate it), Double-crested Cormorant 7, Great Blue Heron 4.        
            Turkey Vulture 30, Osprey 12, Bald Eagle 28, Northern Harrier 5, Red-tailed Hawk 3, American Kestrel 1, King Rail 1 (calling continuously for c. 5 minutes; unsolicited; heard by all 8 of us), American Coot 4 (one of these rears up off of the water, grabs seeds from a cattail head), Killdeer 1, Greater Yellowlegs 5, Lesser Yellowlegs 7, Least Sandpiper 2, Dunlin 75, Wilson’s Snipe 15 (early in the day in the heavy snow fall, tearing around the maintenance shed area, apparently attracted to the ditches there), Laughing Gull 1, Ring-billed Gull 40, Herring Gull 3, Forster’s Tern 2.
            Mourning Dove 4, Red-bellied Woodpecker 3, Downy Woodpecker 2, Blue Jay 2, American Crow 8, Fish Crow 30, Horned Lark 2 (Egypt Road), Tree Swallow 50, Carolina Chickadee 3, Tufted Titmouse 1, White-breasted Nuthatch 1 (a good winter for them regionally), Carolina Wren 2, Eastern Bluebird 8, Hermit Thrush 1, American Robin 45, Northern Mockingbird 3.
            European Starling 25, Myrtle Warbler 1, Eastern Towhee 1, Song Sparrow 5, White-throated Sparrow 6, Slate-colored Junco 8, Northern Cardinal 10, Red-winged Blackbird 150, Eastern Meadowlark 1, Common Grackle 6 (very few all day), House Finch 6, House Sparrow 4.  
            Others have seen a Fox Squirrel today.  The flat, muddy, wet areas of Pool 3B more or less swarm with foraging Dunlin, Green-winged Teal (if a shorebird was a waterfowl it would be a Green-winged Teal), and Red-winged Blackbirds – strange bedfellows.
            Chicken shed W of Bestpitch.  This is a very long, open shed with a big pile of chicken remains in its S end, and, get this, INSIDE the shed are 9 Bald Eagles (7 of them adults), 11 Black and 6 Turkey vultures.  Little Serengeti.  
            Bestpitch marshes, Transquaking River.  2:15 P.M.  Green-winged Teal 130, American Black Duck 17, Greater Yellowlegs 1, Least Sandpiper 8, Tree Swallow 16 – these all around the big open area in the marsh on the S side, which has been getting larger for years.  Also: Bald Eagle 7, Northern Harrier 5.  
            Griffiths Neck Road: 8 Chipping Sparrows.
            Lewis Wharf Road, 3 P.M., Bald Eagle 7, Red-breasted Merganser 11, Red-shouldered Hawk 1, and Northern Harrier 2.  There’s a lot of Japanese Knotweed at the landing there on the edge of the Nanticoke River.
            Elliott Island Road, 3:15-7:30 P.M.  Tide very low.  6 deer.  Clear, 40s, NW 10:          Mute Swan 2, Green-winged Teal 175 (1 of them a ♂ EURASIAN GREEN-WINGED TEAL), Gadwall 14, Canvasback 40, Lesser Scaup only 2, Long-tailed Duck 8, Surf Scoter 14, Bufflehead 38, Ruddy Duck 145, Northern Gannet 4 (adults seen at great distance from the McCready’s Creek marina), Double-crested Cormorant 7, Osprey 8, Bald Eagle 10, Northern Harrier 7, Greater Yellowlegs 16, Dunlin 235, Forster’s Tern 6, Fish Crow 35, Tree Swallow 45, and Boat-tailed Grackle 2♂.
            One immature Bald Eagle begins a chase of an Osprey with a small fish.  Almost immediately the Osprey drops the fish and the eagle tries to catch it in mid-air.  It goes behind the trees and I don’t see the outcome.  There’s an Osprey nest now on top of the decrepit windmill in the village of Elliott across from the old (and closed) general store, the site where one would sometimes see or hear a Barn Owl in former years.
            A Short-eared Owl at 6:39 P.M. close and with strong sunlight behind me, not a cloud in the sky.  This obviates the need for any crepuscular grandstanding in the marsh on my part.  I was tired and ceded the night herons to the dusk.  
            A very fresh roadkill Marsh Wren, the only such I have ever found, is on the road near the N end of the shoreline replenishment project.  It had apparently been in flight between two stands of Phragmites on opposite sides of the road.  It is in perfect plumage, quite rufous, and the little white streaks on its back are quite pretty.  
            When you consider that on March 12 three crack teams did Big Days in the county plus there was one at-large, independent, circuit riding ace, it is interesting that no Marsh Wrens were found.  Thirteen top birders, hard-working, energetic, and active the entire day.  This demonstrates how elusive, or else largely absent, Marsh Wrens are in the colder months.  Grant it this dead one is 15 days later, but I don’t think the breeding population really begins building in until much later in April.  
            Gone, apparently, are occasional days on the Southern Dorchester County Christmas count when there were totals such as 127 (1953), 134 (1984) or 77 (1974).  Since 1985 the highest tally was 20 in 1988.  More often now it is 10 or less.  In mid-winter I have sometimes flushed one by slogging through the marsh for a mile or more.  And their distinctive, little, grating call note is sometimes heard at dawn or dusk.  But they are even hard to get on the fall bird count, the 3rd Saturday in September; at that time of year investigating big marshy patches of Phragmites at dusk is a good strategy for detecting them.  
            Route 50.  At last light 17 deer W of Vienna.
            MONDAY, MARCH 28.  Leave Rigby’s Folly at 11:15 A.M. but first a brief look out into the Choptank River mouth from Lucy Point.  There’s shimmer and waves … hard to see much: 55 Surf Scoters, 2 Common Loons and 3 Red-breasted Mergansers but no gannets.  NW 10-15, 35°F., mostly overcast.
            5 Wilson’s Snipe at the routes 481 X 309 pond, probing away.  Just N of there an American Crow is feeding on a roadkill American Robin.  11 Green-winged Teal in the pond just S of Hope and a flock of 21 Slate-colored Juncos nearby.  15 deer across Route 481 from the now defunct Star Nursery.  Along the way on Route 481: 1 Horned Lark, 1 Killdeer, and 2 American Kestrels.
            Route 301.  Lots of Skunk Cabbage coming up in most of the low areas with small streams, visible also a week ago.  I wonder why there’s none alongside some of those streams.  At Mile 113 an adult Bald Eagle and a Red-tailed Hawk are perched right next to the road; must be a roadkill there.  
            Canada Geese: this is a 3–day trip through prime areas, over 400 miles, and yet the entire time I see < 100 CGs.  That’s the way it’s been for quite a few years.  But I can remember, in the days before the burgeoning of “resident” Canada Geese, once carefully estimating over 1,000 Canada Geese at Blackwater on an April 30.
            March 12-13, the weekend of George’s bachelor party at Rigby’s Folly.  I wasn’t there (thank heaven) but was gratified later to find the place clean and orderly, with abundant leftover, unopened bottles of wine, some cigars, candies, and other goodies, including, to my astonishment, a copy of Fast lane biker Delmarva, whose masthead lists, among others, “Known Associates.”  
            But to return to the issue at hand - mercifully you will say (or think) - George found a White-breasted Nuthatch on March 12.  That Sunday morning, March 13, Chris Starling, on hand for the - I guess one could call them - celebrations, listed 2 Great Horned Owls, 8 Tree Swallows, 15 Long-tailed Ducks, 50 Canvasbacks, 20 Northern Gannets (2 of them sub-adults), 3 Horned Grebes, and 100s of Surf & a few Black scoters.  
            Best to all. – Harry Armistead, Philadelphia. 		 	   		  

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