LOWER EASTERN SHORE, MARYLAND & VIRGINIA, JULY 9-12, 2011.
JULY 9, Saturday. There’s a Least Tern hunting over the miserable little pond next to the Easton McDonald’s. As happens so often the ditches, small streams, and storm drains on the way down are full, from Friday’s big rains, but the promise of such at Rigby’s Folly remains unfulfilled … hardly any sign it’s rained at all.
RIGBY’S FOLLY. Arrive c. 4 P.M. Fair, 92°F. on arrival, N5, 83°F. at 8:30 P.M. A Gray Squirrel gently saltating across the driveway, the welcoming committee. Two Ring-billed Gulls are a predictable and not very exciting fall arrival. Baby Fowler’s Toad by the front porch. Visibility is so good that with 10X binoculars it is easy to see, from the front porch no less, the individual pound net stakes S of Black Walnut Point over 7 miles distant.
Son, George, and D-I-L, Laura Oppenheim, are here already. While canoeing they see a Spotted Sandpiper (a quintessential July arrival species) and 3 Diamondback Terrapin. The Osprey nest on the piling at the head of the cove has one very well-tended youngster. The fields have been herbicided a 2nd time. Lots of Fireflies.
JULY 10, Sunday. A flock of Canada Geese calling, and at this time of year. There’s both pink and white Marsh Hibiscus blooming at Frog Hollow. Leave c. 10:15 A.M. and motor down to Crisfield making several detours.
DORCHESTER COUNTY, MARYLAND:
EGYPT ROAD: A singing ♂ DICKCISSEL on the wire just N of the 4838/4841 Egypt Rd. driveway and adjacent to telephone pole (read these nos. as if from top to bottom) 030/140/T40, S of where they’ve usually been seen this spring/summer on this road. A gentleman who had been kayaking on the Chicamicomico River (and finding Yellow-throated Vireos, prothonotaries, and a Black-and-white Warbler) earlier this morning tipped me off to a Red-headed Woodpecker farther S in the open Loblolly Pine grove E of the Egypt Road where the eagle nest is. Sure enough, there’s a splendid adult there, and, best of all, it is carrying food, but I could not find its cavity nest. A small kettle of 3 soaring Bald Eagles. 1 Green Heron.
BLACKWATER N.W.R. The omnipresent AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN is absent from its usual Sewards/Little Blackwater River haunts but I find it c. 0.5 mils W of the “Observation Site” spur road, where it is exercising its apparently dysfunctional wings. A close Fox Squirrel right next to the road on the way in to the O.S., where there are 3 Lesser Yellowlegs and 2 Least Sandpipers. At the end of this spur road a massive young Bald Eagle lands in the dead pine, unconcerned about the 3 cars and various visitors less than 100 feet away. Easy to see it’s unbanded.
The Marsh Hibiscus is in bloom. I’ve never seen the water levels in Pool 3C higher. 3 Monarchs, 1 Black Swallowtail. 4 Painted Turtles.
Also: 19 Forster’s & 3 Least terns. The Osprey platform nest in the Little Blackwater River opposite Pool 1 has 3 large young. 9 Great Egrets. Only 4 Bald Eagles. 9 Great Egrets. 5 Double-crested Cormorants at Sewards.
Bucktown: 35 Turkey Vultures in the towers near the Harriet Tubman signs. 195 Tree and 4 Bank swallows on the wires, but no Barn Swallows.
Decoursey Bridge Road. 1 Bald Eagle. 3 Osprey nests in sight.
Middletown Branch and Decoursey Bridge roads: 265 Tree, 1 Barn & 3 Bank swallows on the wires.
Ravenwood & Middletown Branch roads area (Smokey Farms): on the wires are 80 Tree Swallows and 3 Purple Martins. 2:45 P.M.
DEAL ISLAND W.M.A. (Somerset County, MD; Dumpster and Riley Roberts roads). 4-6:30 P.M. Rather bleak, as has been the case my last few visits. Temps in the 90s. 3 Black-necked Stilts, 14 Glossy Ibis, 2 Willets, 1 ad. Bald Eagle, 6 Canada Geese, 5 American Black Dcks, a Peregrine Falcon on the hacking tower, 2 Northern Harriers, 14 Great & 10 Snowy Egrets, 1 Green, 1 Tricolored, 1 Little Blue & 2 Great Blue herons, 6 Boat-tailed Grackels, and 1 Mallard plus a few Marsh Wrens and Seaside Sparrows.
2 Red-spotted Purples, 1 Orange Sulphur. 2 Eastern Cottontails, 1 deer (a doe).
The road in along Riley Roberts Road has what are essentially walls of vegetation 4 to 7 feet high along the side and right up to the road track, hampering visibility in many areas: Winged Sumac, Black Cherries, Queen Anne’s Lace, Phragmites, Wax Myrtle, Blackberries (100s of red ones; should be tasty if a little rain comes), Baccharis halimifolia, Persimmons, Panicum, and other stuff I can’t name.
There’s no longer a dumpster on Dumpster Road. ¡Que lastima!
JULY 11, Monday. SOUTH POINT MARSH area, ACCOMACK COUNTY, VIRGINIA, essentially a S extension of Smith Island, MD.
Thirty-four (34!) of us take part in a banding operation of the Brown Pelican colony here. This colony is no longer the monster that it was in the past 7 years or so, when there were 1,000 or more pairs, and we band just, I think it was, 132 pelican chicks. However, many other chicks are too young/small to band; I count 25 nests with either eggs, or eggs and young; I probably missed one or two such nests.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE. Personnel include:
Matt Whitbeck and a crew of 8 others from Blackwater N.W.R. (Amanda Swaller, Frank Christopher, Brittany Forslind, Kayla Berendzen, Johanna Thalmann, Raeth Morgan, Miles Simmons, Larry McGowan).
Steve Kendrot and 8 others from USDA/APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service); Trevor Michaels, Mario Eusi, Marnie Pepper, Carl Dunnock, Dan Dawson, KC Kerr, and Bill Wilmoth plus Roy Hewitt of the USFWS – Chesapeake Bay Field Office).
Tami Pearl with 2 others from the NPS (Lauren Kramer and Hannah Sprinkle), Carrie Samis and 6 others from the Maryland Coastal Bays Program (Bill Mahoney, Simone Nemes, Harrison Jackson, Daijah Richardson, Lester Franklin, and Tashonna Grant).
MD DNR volunteer Dick Arnold, Smith Island’s minister Rick Edmund, and some others unaffiliated with any agency or organization: Suzanne Miller, Tony Quezon, and myself, all under the direction of master bander John Weske.
Some of these folks are students and summer interns.
Due to various mishaps, such as 2 boats having engine problems, we are in the field 7:30 A.M. until 6 P.M. Fortunately Captain Larry Laird, a Smith Islander who lives in Tylerton, is there, too, in his big ‘Bay Eagle’ boat, and able to rescue and ferry many of us around. Clear or fair, 80s, and a most welcome 15-20 m.p.h. SW wind.
At South Point Marsh: a flyby AMERICAN GOLDEN PLOVER at close range, a really strange and early date for one. 2 Willets, 2 American Black Ducks, a Mallard, 7 oystercatchers (those that I could see well enough were unbanded), 1 Tricolored, 2 Little Blue & 3 Yellow-crowned Night herons, 4 Forster’s & 6 Royal terns, 3 Boat-tailed Grackles, 4 Seaside Sparrows, 5 Fish Crows, and 4 Glossy Ibis.
SMITH ISLAND, MARYLAND. We motor slowly past, sometimes anchor, near all 3 towns: Ewell, Rhodes Point & Tylerton. 1 CLIFF SWALLOW (Tony & Suzanne saw 2 in Crisfield yesterday, July 10), 7 Clapper Rails (very vocal in the Spartina marsh just S of Sheep Pen Gut), 1 Rock Pigeon, 1 ♂ House Sparrow, 2 Chimney Swifts, 6 American Black Ducks, 30 Fish Crows, 7 Boat-tailed Grackles, 6 Royal & 5 Forster’s terns, 2 CEDAR WAXWINGS, 10 Glossy Ibis, 1 Tree & 35 Barn swallows, 6 oystercatchers, 2 Green, 5 Little Blue, 4 Yellow-crowned Night & 2 Tricolored herons, and 3 Seaside Sparrows.
JULY 12, Tuesday. CRISFIELD, MD, area. Four Cattle Egrets in an unmowed lawn, Lawson Barnes Road. A Red Fox, Phoenix Church Road. A d.o.r. Striped Skunk at an unrecorded location. Two adult and 2 small young Killdeer, Cornstock Road; this seems late in the year for young Killdeer. I often see post-breeding groups of full-size Killdeer in late June. The highway system NE of Crisfield I find to be a bewildering morass of small roads, which, however, pass through beautiful neighborhoods and countryside.
A Gray Squirrel on the Pines Motel lawn. Crisfield is a good Chimney Swift town with many traditional chimneys of which they can avail themselves. The grounds of the Pines Motel are quite birdy, even have some flyover gulls, terns, and herons.
RUMBLY POINT ROAD. One of the most beautiful saltmarshes in Maryland. When the paving ends it’s 0.6 miles to where the marsh begins, passing Irish Grove Sanctuary on the way, then a full 1.4 miles of open marsh, diverse, not just Juncus roemerianus. High tide, covering parts of the road in 4 places. 91°F. (in the shade), fair, winds NW or WNW 20 m.p.h. Nice, freshly-dug, beautifully-bevelled ditches in the woodland segment, as well as farther N. 9-11 A.M.
Any area that has obscure roads named Quindocqua and Marumsco plus, in large, neat, white, spray-painted letters on the paving, in the middle of nowhere, “Love you Patricia,” has got to be O.K. Two crows perch on top of the Quindocqua Methodist Church belfry.
Complete list (for the marsh segment only): BLACK-NECKED STILT 2, Willet 1, Greater Yellowlegs 3, Northern Harrier 1 ad. ♀, Bald Eagle 1, Seaside (22), Song (1) & Saltmarsh (2) sparrows, Glossy Ibis 8, Snowy (22) and Great (7) egrets, Tricolored (1), Green (1) & Great Blue (4) herons, Royal (1) & Forster’s (7) terns, Tree (1) & Barn (9) swallows, Clapper Rail 1, American Black Duck 1, Osprey 1, Turkey Vulture 4, Herring (4) & Laughing (50) gulls, Marsh Wren 5, Common Yellowthroat 1, Boat-tailed Grackle 4, Red-winged Blackbird 50, Purple Martin 4, and Eastern Meadowlark 1.
Plus countless 100s of Seaside Dragonlets, lots of biting flies, and a parfleche of grasshoppers. This has been a poor summer for butterflies in the places I’ve visited.
It’s 185 miles back to Philadelphia. Along the way a d.o.r. Beaver on the side of Route 495, Wilmington, DE, the 2nd time I’ve encountered such there.
JULY 8, FRIDAY. I wasn’t present but John Weske et al. banded 139 Royal Tern chicks at Reedy Island in north Ocean City, MD.
CLUMP ISLAND, ACCOMACK COUNTY, VRGINIA. A part of the Fox Islands archipelago (owned by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation) S of Crisfield, MD. We were to band Royal Tern chicks here on July 12 but boat engine problems put the kibosh on this. However, this may happen within the next few days. There are an estimated 600 pairs there, at least. Since the 1970s John and his myriad helpers have banded well over 500,000 royal chicks, providing an unparalleled index of the changing populations, longevity, and distribution of this species.
Best wishes. – Harry Armistead, Philadelphia.
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