SMITH ISLAND, MD, SOUTH POINT MARSH, VA, & WORCESTER COUNTY, MD, AUGUST 1-3, 2011, a time of Barn Swallows, arriving Monarchs & the start of blooming Goldenrod.
            ABBREVIATIONS:  BCNH, Black-crowned Night Heron.  YCNH, Yellow-crowned Night Heron.
            APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA.  Once a year or so I feel compelled to say that my field notes are intended, first of all, to provide a record of what I’ve seen, but they also go to friends and family, some of whom know little about birds, and, lastly, they are for my own pleasure and to help me remember these days out-of-doors.  Hence they may seem to some to constitute an excess of detail.  When I am old and dottery and perhaps may not be able to do these things anymore, I hope they will enable me to relive the pleasures of these minor adventures. 
            AUGUST 1, MONDAY.  E of Salisbury, MD, 73 Canada Geese in a field, Rt. 13, near milepost 33, with one pure white goose in with them, orange bill and legs.  Four Cattle Egrets in a field W of Rt. 413 just N of Crisfield.  
            AUGUST 2, TUESDAY:
            SOUTH POINT MARSH, Accomack County, VA (essentially an extension of Smith I., MD).  9 A.M. – 3:30 P.M.  A pelican banding trip with Dave Brinker and John Weske as banders, Jennifer McNicoll, Hannah Sprinkle, and me as bird catchers.  This is a long day.  At the end my legs feel as if I had summited Annapurna, with consequent rather severe muscle spasms in spite of abundant Gatorade consumption and a banana.  
            Just about perfect for the pelicans and the work we do with them: clear, winds NW 20-25-10 m.p.h., temps in the low 80s.  Tide low at 9:29 A.M. at Janes Island light.
            A group of c. 24 teachers who are taking a course with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation under the direction of Kaitlyn Moss and others are to join us but because of low water most of the day are unable to until we almost finish late in the afternoon, when they finally get a good taste of marsh mud, unstable substrates, warm bay water, and, more important, the spectacle of a large pelican colony as well as exposure to the crazed, driven individuals such as us who haunt it.  They’ll not soon forget it.
            With regard to the CHESAPEAKE BAY FOUNDATION, while watching the Nationals beat the Braves on TV at Crisfield’s Pines Motel Monday evening, I was pleased to see a CBF advertisement during the game, a nice relief from the tiresome beer and cars ads.
            We band a total of 553 pelican and 7 Double-crested Cormorant chicks, probably c. 95% of the bandable peli chicks there.  We see just one pelican nest with eggs (2) and one nest with very small young.      
            Most of the time we’re wrangling pelican chicks so birding is limited but: 3 BCNH, 4 YCNH, 1 Tricolored & 3 Little Blue herons, 5 Black-bellied Plovers, 32 American Oystercatchers (in sight simultaneously), 13 Seaside Sparrows, 11 Glossy Ibis, 1 Willet, 9 Great Egrets, 5 Boat-tailed Grackles, 7 Fish Crows, 16 Barn Swallows, 5 Royal Terns, 2 Ospreys and 25 unID’d distant sandpipers.  Twice I flush an American Black Duck from exactly the same patch of Spartina alterniflora, a certain sign of an occupied nest, and Dave Brinker sees an adult with one duckling, plus we see 3 other flying AMBDs. 
            Non-avian taxa: 4 Diamondback Terrapin, 1 Green Darner, a Question Mark, and 8 Monarchs.  During these 3 days there is definitely a small but widespread influx of Monarchs.
            The South Point Marsh pelican cluster is no longer the monster it was when over 1,000 pairs nested here for several years, but it is certainly still impressive and perhaps the largest Brown Pelican colony N of North Carolina.
            SMITH ISLAND, MD, especially Tylerton and Rhodes Point.  Earlier in the day: 6 Glossy Ibis, 7 oystercatchers, 30 Barn Swallows, 8 Purple Martins, 7 Tricolored & 9 adult Little Blue Herons, 2 Red-winged Blackbirds, 20 Fish Crows, 6 Royal Terns, 3 Ospreys, 1 BCNH, 3 Ospreys, 2 YCNH, and 6 unID’d peep.  One Monarch.  The “3 Stinkers” (Duncan MacDonald’s term) are present: 6 starlings, 4 House Sparrows and 2 pigeons.  A species of cicada is in Tylerton with a distinctive double “note”.  I have never heard them much farther N than Blackwater N.W.R. on the mainland.  I think it’s called Scissor-grinder Cicada and is featured on one of Lang Elliott’s recordings.  I hear 3 here.  
            CLUMP ISLAND, a few miles E. of South Point Marsh.  The plan is to conduct Royal Tern mopping up operations here later today, or on Wednesday, but we run out of time (time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana) and there are also boat engine issues. Perhaps in the next few days.  1,190 royal chicks were banded here in July.
            AUGUST 3, WEDNESDAY.  21 Cattle Egrets in the aforementioned Crisfield field at 9 A.M.  115 Canada Geese around a pond off Onley Road in Worcester County at 9:46 A.M.
            WORCESTER COUNTY, MD, birds seen at 3 landings in the S part of the county.  The attractive saltmarshes here are so different from those in the Chesapeake, predominantly low Spartina alterniflora no more than a foot high.  Rich woodlands, with many deciduous trees, lie on gradually sloping land leading down to the marshlands.  
            In the distance, in Chincoteague Bay, are marshy islands, some with considerable Loblolly Pine groves: Shelldrake, Rattlesnake, Mills, Tizzard, and Assacorkin islands as well as Ready Cove and Robbins tumps.  Farther still in the misty, shimmering, blue-gray distance, c. 5 miles away, are the extensive pine groves of Assateague Island.  
            Sheldrake is a colloquial local name for Red-breasted Merganser.  Tump is a term for small, marshy islands, usually with peaty sod banks one or two feet high.  I’ve only known it to be used, mostly, in the MD/VA boundary area, but on both sides of the Delmarva Peninsula in the Chesapeake and here in Chincoteague Bay, although farther S near Willis Wharf there is Parchaby Tump.  
            Hereabouts, and elsewhere I suppose, apostrophes are often dropped from place names just as g’s are dropped when Sarah Palin speaks; I’m supposin’ it makes speakin’ and spellin’ easier:
            Taylor’s Landing, 9:50-11:20 A.M.  3 Seaside Sparrows, 2 Brown Pelicans, a Great Blue Heron, a Blue Grosbeak, 2 Snowy & 11 Great egrets, 2 Glossy Ibis, 13 Least Sandpipers, a Royal & 27 Common/Forster’s terns (mostly but not all Forster’s), 10 Double-crested Cormorants, 1 adult Bald Eagle, 1 Marsh Wren, and 95 Barn Swallows plus a Tiger Swallowtail.  Dave Brinker comes in after censusing Big Bay Marsh, a low marsh island offshore, where he has counted 136 Brown Pelican nests, a record for coastal Maryland.  At the landing Dave also has 2 Northern Bobwhite, a Spotted Sandpiper, and a Green Heron.
            Truitts Landing, 11:50-12:30.  No fancy ibises, rails, or shorebirds.  Most of the birds are in the big, semi-impounded area S of the dirt road here.  30 Great & 8 Snowy egrets, 3 Brown Pelicans, 1 Glossy Ibis, 16 Least Sandpipers, 7 American Black Ducks, 1 Greater & 5 Lesser yellowlegs, 65 Forster’s Terns, 3 Brown Pelicans, 3 Seaside Sparrows and 1 imm. Little Blue Heron plus a Gray Squirrel, 100s of Seaside Dragonlets, a Monarch, and a Spicebush Swallowtail.  The N side of the road is a quite fresh impoundment, alive today with tiny fishes, with some cattails; I assume this is where the King Rails occur.
            Scotts Landing, 12:35-1:30.  1 Glossy Ibis, 40 Brown Pelicans (most of these at their colony on Big Bay Marsh, 2 miles distant, but quite visible at 10X), 40 Barn & 2 Tree swallows, 2 Eastern Wood Pewees, 4 Seaside Sparrows, 3 Great Egrets, 1 Greater Yellowlegs, 7 Fish Crows, 1 Common & 7 Forster’s terns, a Great Blue Heron, 9 Least & 4 Spotted sandpipers, a ♂ Blue Grosbeak, an Eastern Bluebird, and an Eastern Kingbird hitting on a Black Vulture plus a Gray Squirrel and a Tiger Swallowtail.  Nearby - a roadkill Raccoon at Ayres Lane Road.  
            Somerset County, though Maryland’s poorest county, has some big time agriculture, as does lower Worcester County.  Driving up Route 12 towards Salisbury there are notices out that the Blessing of the Combines will take place later in August at Snow Hill.
            PEEP ID.  All of the peep seen well these 3 days are Least Sandpipers, which is a good fit with the muddy areas visited.
            PENNSYLVANIA, sometimes called Pencesylvania now that Hunter Pence is in right field for the Phillies: Bald Eagle, 1 adult, outskirts of Philadelphia, flying low down the Schuylkill River right over I-476 and downtown Conshohocken.
            REEDY ISLAND, MD, ROYAL TERN MOPPING UP OPERATIONS.  On July 26 a revisit was made to Reedy I. in N Ocean City and 16 royal chicks were banded by Dave Brinker, John Weske, et al.  They’d been too small to band a month or so earlier when 139 were tagged.
            AUK, July 2011, pp. 577-586, arrived in today’s mail and contains an article, “Reproductive success of Eastern Bluebirds (Sialia sialis) on suburban golf courses,” by Kerri L. Cornell and 9 others associated with the College of William and Mary.  The upshot is that bluebirds have better breeding success on golf courses than on other urban or suburban open space areas (parks, college campuses, cemeteries, etc.).  They monitored more than 650 nest boxes in Virginia.  The 10th author is Dr. Daniel Cristol, who I suspect gave himself last place due to his unassuming modesty.  Recently Dan received the Mitchell A. Byrd Award for Scientific Achievement of the V.S.O, its first recipient, for his research on the effects of mercury on birds.  He is on the board of advisors of the Coastal Virginia Wildlife Observatory.  
            AMERICAN ROBINS are starting to congregate on lawns in numbers surpassing the local breeding populations in the immediate vicinity of those lawns.
            DROUGHT OR LACK OF IT.  Most of the areas this trip are lush green, not nearly as dry as at our Talbot County place or in Philadelphia.  The apple trees carry a large burden of fruit.  It rains in Crisfield, briefly, on Monday night.
            “FREE” 2012 UNSOLICITED CALENDARS, the 1st one in June, from conservation organizations I belong to, have been coming in, 6 so far, each costing the organization $1,000s of $$.  I put one each in 3 bedrooms, the kitchen, and living room of our MD house, in 3 strategic spots of our PA home.  Typically, attractive as they are, they include minimalist, sometimes incorrect, information with the photograph captions.  One has Elliot Island instead of Elliott Island, another misidentifies a Solitary Sandpiper as a yellowlegs.  
            Years ago, as a result of this onslaught, I stopped buying Ansel Adams calendars as a birthday gift for Liz each year.  Also unasked for are 1000s of address labels and dozens of greeting cards from other organizations, some of which I’ve never belonged to.  Where is Joyce Kilmer when you need her?
            HUNTING IN MARYLAND.  Proposed regulations for the upcoming season stipulate (source the [Salisbury] Daily times, Aug. 3, p. B3) that it’s O.K. to shoot one Fulvous Whistling Duck and one Mottled Duck, per day.  The so-called light goose season (lite goose?; limit of 25/day) gives the dates and bag limits which include, in aggregate, both Greater and Lesser Snow Geese as well as Ross’s Geese.  
            In as much as there have never been any records for Mottled Ducks in this state and precious few for Fulvous Whistling Ducks (I’ve seen them twice in MD in 61 years of birding here) one might wonder if templates from other states may be in play, just as the Arctic oil field disaster plans were in part transmitted to the Gulf of Mexico and mentioned the Walrus.  A facetious op/ed piece in the newspapers on the recent Gulf oil disaster headlined that “No walruses were harmed.”  
            The crow season opens August 15, Wednesdays to Saturdays only.  A special light goose spring season is proposed to extend from Jan. 30-April 14 “with no bag limits” and O.K.’s the use of unplugged shotguns, electronic calling, and extended hours. 
            A public hearing on the proposed regulations will be at Chesapeake College, August 15, 7 P.M.
            Speaking of templates a few years ago a friend’s Virginia bird banding permit emphasized that no Waterbucks, an African antelope, were to be banded.  Really!  We could all use copy editors.  I certainly can.  See immediately below.
              A READER’S GUIDE TO MY JULY 24-27 FIELD NOTES.  In addition to the mistakes noted earlier, which are referenced in their entirety below*, please also note that the Fosters’ Mississippi Kite was seen at ESVNWR July 23 not June 23.  Murning Cloak should be Mourning Cloak.  Back Duck Marsh should be Black Duck Marsh.  Kazyak should be Kayzmak.  Honey Tolu is the brand name on the old bottle.       
            *Jimsonweed, not Jimson Weed.  Add: 2 Semipalmated Plovers to the Holland Island list.  But more important, I neglected to state that Dave Brinker is the one in charge of the pelican banding, a project of his for over 10 years, well over 20,000 banded.  Of course he was with us on Holland Island, along with his daughter, Laurel.  Thank you for your forbearance.
            Best to all. – Harry Armistead, Philadelphia. 		 	   		  

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